Floods generated by a massive storm on Tuesday in Libya were blamed for the disappearance of at least 10,000 people and the destruction of as much as a fifth of the city of Derna in the country’s east.
After barreling across the Mediterranean, Storm Daniel hit a country that was already torn and collapsing from almost a decade of conflict, leaving more than 1,000 dead in Derna alone.
On the drive to Derna, a coastal city of around 125,000 people, a Reuters journalist spotted overturned automobiles on the sides of roads, trees knocked down, and abandoned, flooded homes.
After the dams broke, footage showed a huge torrent tearing through the heart of the city, destroying everything in its path.
“Bodies are lying everywhere,” Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation in the administration that oversees the east, told Reuters by phone shortly after reaching Derna, referring to the city’s lack of access to medical care.
“More than a thousand bodies have been recovered in Derna,” he claimed. Not exaggerating when I say a quarter of the city is gone. Numerous structures have been destroyed.
Later, Abu Chkiouat told Al Jazeera that he believed the number of dead to be over 2,500 across the country. The number of missing individuals was also increasing.
Tamer Ramadan, the head of a team from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the death toll will be “huge” because of the widespread destruction caused by the storm in eastern areas like Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city.
“We can confirm from our independent sources of information that the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 so far,” he said to reporters via video link.
Martin Griffiths, the United Nations’ emergency relief coordinator, announced on X (previously Twitter) that response teams were being assembled.
Distraught residents of Derna rushed home to look for loved ones while Turkey and other countries rushed relief to Libya in the form of search and rescue trucks, rescue boats, generators, and food.
I’ve “never felt as afraid”
A woman began openly sobbing after receiving news that the majority of her family was either dead or missing at the Tripoli airport in northwest Libya. We are not talking about one or two individuals dead, but up to 10 members of each family,” her brother-in-law Walid Abdulati added.
On his flight from Tripoli to the east, passenger Karim al-Obaidi remarked, “I have never felt as afraid as I do today… All of my relatives, close friends, and neighbours have stopped talking to me.
The “many families that were swept into the sea in the city of Derna,” according to a spokesperson for the interior ministry quoted by Al Jazeera.
Libyan television station al-Masar aired footage showing people looking for dead and men in a rubber boat bringing one back from the water.
“We have nothing to save people… no machines… we are asking for urgent help,” Khalifah Touil, an ambulance worker, said.
Dams prevent the seasonal river from flooding the city of Derna on Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coast as it makes its way from the southern highlands.
Isolated Flooding
Massive pools of murky water have formed around the ruins of a dam that collapsed 11.5 kilometres (7 miles) upstream of the city, at the confluence of two river basins.
A voice can be heard saying, “There used to be a dam,” in the footage. Images were used to verify the location by Reuters.
Repeated flooding of the seasonal riverbed, or wadi, has been identified as a threat to Derna, according to research released last year by hydrologist Abdelwanees A. R. Ashoor of Libya’s Omar Al-Mukhtar University. He mentioned five floods that had occurred since 1942 and urged quick action to ensure the dams would be regularly maintained.
“If a huge flood happens, the result will be catastrophic for the people of the wadi and the city,” the daily said.
Many foreign leaders, including Pope Francis, have expressed their sorrow over the deaths and destruction in Libya.
Since a popular revolt in 2011 that was supported by NATO sparked years of factional conflict, Libya has been politically split between the east and west, and public services have collapsed.
A Reuters reporter on board a relief flight from Misrata in the west to Derna on Tuesday confirmed that aid had been sent by the internationally recognised administration in Tripoli, which does not control territories in the east.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes in Norway, according to the Refugee Council.
Some of the poorest towns on Libya’s north shore are facing a disaster, according to our crew in Libya. Whole communities have been wiped out by the floodwaters, and the death toll keeps rising,” it said.
