Up to 20,000 people feared dead after devastating floods. Plus, Mitt Romney attacks Trump in resignation announcement
Good morning.
Rescue workers in the devastated Libyan city of Derna have appealed for more body bags after a catastrophic flood killed thousands of people and swept many out to sea.
International aid is slowly starting to reach the port city after Storm Daniel hit the northern coast of Libya on Saturday night.
“We actually need teams specialised in recovering bodies,” said Derna’s mayor, Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi. “I fear that the city will be infected with an epidemic due to the large number of bodies under the rubble and in the water.”
The city of about 100,000 has been devastated. Hichem Abu Chkiouat, the minister of civil aviation in the area, said the “sea is constantly dumping dozens of bodies”. An aid worker from Benghazi told the Associated Press: “Bodies are everywhere, inside houses, in the streets, at sea. Wherever you go, you find dead men, women and children.”
The disaster in Libya is the result of the “climate crisis meeting a failed state”, writes the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour.Mitt Romney condemns ‘demagogue’ Trump as he announces retirement
Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a former presidential nominee and a rare relative moderate in the Republican party of Donald Trump, has said he will not run for a second term next year, depriving the party of one of its fiercest critics in Congress of the former US president and his political movement.
