The number of dead in floods in Libya could reach thousands, an official from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Tuesday.

Officials in the administration that runs the eastern part of the divided country said on Monday that at least 2,000 people had been killed by the floods, though it was not immediately clear what that estimate was based on.

"The death toll is huge and might reach thousands," Tamer Ramadan, head of the IFRC delegation in Libya, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Tunisia. (Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Rachel More)