An Irish-Libyan emergency medicine surgeon working in the devastated Libyan city of Derna has said he fears the death toll there could reach 20,000.
Dr Salem Langhi, who spent 16 years living and working in Ireland, described the situation on the ground as "catastrophic".
"Most of the city centre has gone completely ... wiped off the map."
Survivors are "walking like zombies," he said.
"They are not crying. They are still in a state of shock. You don't see nothing in their eyes. They have nothing left."
Speaking to RTÉ's News at One, Dr Langhi said those who died had been "buried under the mud" or "thrown by the water to the sea".
"Everyday we find a lot of people, hundreds of dead bodies lying on the beach ... or under the destroyed houses".
Dr Langhi is usually based in the city of Benghazi but travelled to Derna on Monday in a bid to help in the rescue and recovery effort.
He said "convoys" of medical staff "doctors, nurses" raced to the city and that he helped to set up a field hospital there.
He said he had hoped to give medical care to those who survived "but unfortunately there are very, very few of them".
Dr Langhi is calling on Irish people for "pray" for all the victims of this disaster.
One of his friends in Derna had lost 40 members of his family.
"A lot of people looking for their families, some of them ... their whole family were killed ... the fathers, the mothers, the sons, the daughters, their cousins.
"It is very tragic and very painful to see all this.
"This is a very close community," Dr Langhi said.
He described going to one neighbourhood in Derna, where there had been a hotel, "it's not that you see the wreckage, you don't see nothing, you just see water".
Locals told him of seeing "whole buildings" moving in the water, and being swept out to sea.
He said bodies are being washed up hundreds of kilometres away such was the force of the floods.
"The whole sea, the colour is mud like ... you can see the mud going maybe two or three kilometres into the sea and you can see cars there," he said.
