We managed to gain rare access to Eastern Libya last week, where a truly devastating flood

has claimed the lives of, likely, at least 10,000 people.

That's Louisa Lovelock.

She reports on global crises for the post.

She and our colleagues were among the first to report from the disaster zone in Libya,

as other foreign journalists struggled to get access to the country.

The worst-affected city of all is a place called Dürner, right on this country's northern shore.

And we saw the destruction there first from a helicopter and then later from the ground.

I'm just looking at the buildings and honestly lost the words.

It's hard to understand how the force of the waves could be so powerful that it could

do this to buildings.

I've never seen buildings simultaneously twisted, smashed, perfectly standing.

I mean, what it must have been like here.

I'm far from it already.

It's been twisted.

That's a car.

The cars are twisted so tightly that they look like they've been woven by some sort of insect.

The scale of the damage is absolutely huge.

There's an entire district that was basically picked up and wiped off the map.

When you see it from above, it's just red silt.

You can barely even see the lines of where the foundations were.

There are hospitals that have fallen out of service, not because they were damaged,

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