Libya’s two conflicting governments are coordinating relief operations for flood victims, according to the UN.
Two dam breaks caused disastrous floods that killed more than 5,300 people in the eastern city of Derna.
Tens of thousands more have been displaced, and there are at least 10,000 people who are missing.
According to a UN representative, the governments of the east and west had both asked for international assistance and were communicating with one another.
“Both governments have reached out to the international community requesting services and help,” Tauhid Pasha, of the International Organisation for Migration reports.
“The Government of National Unity [western government] has extended its support to us and its request on behalf of the entire country and they are also co-ordinating with the government in the east,” he said.
“The challenge now is the international community responding accordingly to the needs and the requests of the governments,” he added.
Mr Pasha said support needed to be scaled up “very, very quickly and to do so we need money”.
Since the assassination of long-serving ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has been divided into two opposing governments and riven by conflict between many militias.
In Tripoli, Libya’s western capital city, Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah leads the UN-backed Government of National Unity.
Osama Hamad, the prime minister in the east, leads a rival administration known as the House of Representatives. However, many feel power there is really held by military strongman Gen Khalifa Haftar, who leads the Libyan National Army,
General Haftar received an Egyptian military delegation which came to offer aid and support after the disaster.
UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Volker Turk stressed that all political groups had to work together in the aftermath of the floods.
Abdulkader Assad, political editor of the Libya Observer, said having an internationally recognised government in the west rivalled by another government in the east had hindered rescue efforts.
“We all know that Libya has been split between two governments for the last decade at least and we haven’t actually felt the impact of this division because the presence of two governments was all about vying for power and taking control of the country and parts of the country,” he said.
“But now that some of the cities are experiencing this natural disaster, this calamity, we could see that the lack of a unified centralised government is actually affecting the lives of people.”
Libyan rescue teams searching for survivors in Derna are being supported on the ground by Search and rescue teams from Egypt and Tunisia, over 160 personnel from Turkey, Firefighters from Italy and Spain.
Tommaso Della Longa, spokesman for the president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said time to find survivors was running out.
The bodies of more than 80 Egyptian migrants killed in the flood were returned to Egypt, the country’s emigration ministry said, and were buried in their respective towns.
