New Delhi: At least 10,000 people are feared missing in the city of Derna in eastern Libya due to catastrophic flooding caused by Storm Daniel, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported Tuesday. The flooding has reportedly wiped out a quarter of the city, with more than 1,000 bodies recovered, according to officials in eastern Libya.
Ahmed Mismari, the spokesperson for the Libyan National Army (LNA), which controls eastern Libya, told a news conference Monday that two dams above Derna burst after Storm Daniel hit eastern Libya, “sweeping whole neighbourhoods with their residents into the sea”, according to Reuters.
Local media reports quoted Othman Abdul-Jalil, Libya’s designated health minister, as saying that he expects the death toll to rise to over 10,000 and that the government hasn’t been able to reach many neighbourhoods yet.
Storm Daniel pummelled Greece for three days starting 5 September, killing 15 people there, before making landfall in Libya Sunday. Daniel was reportedly the most intense rainstorm the country had seen since 1930, when records first began to be kept, according to Reuters.
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What happened in Derna
Storm Daniel ripped through Libya Sunday and Monday, leaving a trail of destruction in the cities of Benghazi, Susa, Bayda, and al Marj, according to a report by Al Jazeera. But it was Derna that was hit the hardest.
This was because the storm caused two dams above the city to burst one after the other, leading to water rising as high as 3 metres (10 feet) and sweeping through the city, swallowing up buildings and destroying roads and infrastructure, the Al Jazeera report said.
This caused Derna, which is surrounded by mountains, to be cut off from the rest of the country, making it difficult for relief efforts to make it on time, the report said. Photos and social media posts show parts of the city — especially neighbourhoods on the banks of the river Derna — being completely destroyed.
Speaking to Reuters, Derna resident Saleh al-Obaidi said he had managed to flee with his family, although houses in a valley near the city had collapsed.
“People were asleep and woke up and found their homes surrounded by water,” he said to Reuters.
Lack of single government in Libya
The floods and relief efforts have further faced difficulties due to the lack of a single unified government in Libya since the fall of Muammar Gadaffi’s government in 2011. Gadaffi led Libya from 1969 till 2011, when he was overthrown and killed during the Libyan civil war.
The UN-recognised Government of National Unity seated in Tripoli has control of the western half of Libya, while General Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army seated at Tobruk has control of eastern Libya.
Between 2014 and 2018m the city of Derna was controlled by affiliates of the Islamic State (IS), as well as other religious militias aiming to implement Sharia law in the city. In 2018, Haftar announced the capture of Derna — some 300 km east of Benghazi — and has since then governed the city.
The internationally recognised government under Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh has reportedly promised to send relief material to the east, while announcing three days of mourning for the lives lost.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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