HUNDREDS FEARED DROWNED AFTER LIBYAN CITY HIT BY ‘CATASTROPHIC’ STORM FLOODS

Tue 12 September 2023:

The city of Derna in eastern Libya may have seen as many as 2,000 people drown after a strong storm caused disastrous flooding.

Thousands feared dead after flooding rips through Libya pic.twitter.com/ckIBeZxrtT

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) September 12, 2023

Ossama Hamad, the prime minister of the east-based government, said on the Libyan network Almasar that “more than 2,000 dead and thousands missing” had been reported in the city of Derna alone as a result of the torrential rains that Mediterranean storm Daniel brought over the weekend. These numbers have not been verified by medical or emergency services sources.

Derna, the worst-hit district, remained largely shut off, with local officials alleging the situation was “out of control and a catastrophe.” The Red Crescent in Benghazi had estimated the dead toll closer to just 250.

(Al Jazeera)

Maj Gen Ahmed Al-Mismari, a spokesman for the eastern Libyan army, claimed that the 100,000-person city may have 5,000 to 6,000 missing people.

With communication lines down and administration impeded by a decade-long power struggle between two competing administrations, each supported by its own militias, it is difficult to estimate the exact number of fatalities.

Hundreds feared drowned after Libyan city hit by ‘catastrophic’ storm floods#ليبيا #انقذوا_درنة pic.twitter.com/Q4LnlTaM4P

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) September 12, 2023

“The city of Derna is completely surrounded by mountains, and these dams collapsed,” said Al Jazeera’s Malik Traina, reporting from the capital, Tripoli, in Libya’s west. “Some experts are saying more than 30 million cubic square metres of water was dumped into the city, and we’re starting to see pictures of entire neighbourhoods destroyed.”

Search-and-rescue operations will be a challenge as Libya remains divided between two rival administrations, one in the east and one in the west, each backed by militias and foreign governments.

Meanwhile, the Libyan Presidential Council based in Tripoli declared three parts of the country’s eastern Cyrenaica province a disaster area due to floods and asked for international help.

On Monday, Derna resident Ahmed Mohamed said, “We were asleep, and when we woke up, we found water besieging the house. We are inside and trying to get out.”

Videos posted online by residents of the city showed substantial devastation. Entire residential areas were erased along a river that runs down from the mountains through the city centre. Multistorey apartment buildings that once stood well back from the river were partially collapsed into the mud.

The Derna municipal council announced on their official Facebook page that “the situation is catastrophic and out of control”. It called for international intervention and the opening of a sea corridor due to the collapse of most of the city’s roads.

Speaking to the local TV channel Libya al-Ahrar, a Derna city council official said four main bridges had collapsed, as well as the dams. Local media reported there was no electricity.

“There’s no internet connection, no electricity … the magnitude of the disaster that has happened in the city [Derna] is just growing by the minute,” Hani Shennib, president of the National Council on US-Libya Relations, told Al Jazeera.

“Numbers are expected to grow … to at least 5,000 victims,” Shennib said.

“The tragedy that is happening there is not only absent from the international community but also there are challenges with reaching out to inform the world of what is happening.”

Georgette Gagnon, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Libya, said early reports showed that dozens of villages and towns were “severely affected … with widespread flooding, damage to infrastructure, and loss of life.”

“I am deeply saddened by the severe impact of (storm) Daniel on the country … I call on all local, national, and international partners to join hands to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the people in eastern Libya,” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The United Nations mission in Libya on Monday said on X, formerly Twitter, that it was “closely following the emergency caused by severe weather conditions in the eastern region of the country”.

It expressed its condolences over the deaths and said it was “ready to support efforts by local authorities and municipalities to respond to this emergency and provide urgent humanitarian assistance”.

Since a 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi, Libya has lacked a central government and the resulting lawlessness has meant dwindling investment in the country’s roads and public services and also minimal regulation of private building.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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