Rescuers and relatives sit in front of the collapsed buildings after the recent flooding caused by Mediterranean storm Daniel, in Derna, Libya.
| Photo Credit: AP

Abdel-Hamid al-Hassadi survived the devastating flooding in eastern Libya, but he lost some 90 people from his extended family.

The 23-year-old law graduate rushed upstairs along with his mother and his elder brother, as heavy rains lashed the city of Derna on the evening of September 10. Soon, torrents of water were washing away buildings next to them.

“We witnessed the magnitude of the catastrophe,” Mr. al-Hassadi said in a phone interview, referring to the massive flooding that engulfed his city. “We have seen our neighbours’ dead bodies washing away in the floods.”

Heavy rains from Mediterranean storm Daniel caused the collapse of the two dams that spanned the narrow valley that divides the city. That sent a wall of water several metres high through its heart.

Ten days after the disaster, Mr. Hassadi and thousands of others remain in Derna, most of them waiting for a word about relatives and loved ones. For Mr. Hassadi, 290 relatives are still missing.

“The floods inundated as much as a quarter of the city,” officials say. Thousands of people were killed, with many dead bodies still under the rubble or at sea, according to search teams. Government officials and aid agencies have given varied death tolls.

The World Health Organization says a total of 3,958 deaths have been registered in hospitals, but a previous death toll given by the head of Libya’s Red Crescent said at least 11,300 were killed. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says at least 9,000 people are still missing.

Bashir Omar, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the fatalities are in the thousands, but he didn’t give a specific toll for the number of retrieved bodies, since there are many groups involved in the recovery effort.

Many Derna residents, including women and children, are spending all their time at collection points of bodies. They are desperate to know who is inside body bags carried by ambulances. Inside a school in the western part of the city, authorities posted photos of the retrieved bodies.

Anas Aweis, a 24-year-old resident, lost two brothers and is still searching for his father and four cousins. He went to the Ummul Qura school in the Sheiha neighbourhood to inspect the exhibited photos.

“It’s chaos,” he said after spending two hours waiting in lines. “We want to know where they buried them if they died.”

The floods have displaced at least 40,000 people in eastern Libya, including 30,000 in Derna, according to the U.N.’s migration agency. Many have moved to other cities across Libya, hosted by local communities or sheltered in schools. There are risks to staying, including potential infection by waterborne diseases.

Rana Ksaifi, assistant chief of mission in Libya for the U.N.’s refugee agency, said the floods have left “unfathomable levels of destruction,” and triggered new waves of displacement in the already conflict-stricken nation.

The houseplants on the rooftop of Abdul Salam Anwisi’s building survived the waters that reached up to his 4th-floor apartment. Anwisi’s and a few other families rode out the deluge on the roof, which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. They thought they wouldn’t live to see daylight. Now, as he sifts through the water-damaged debris of his home, it’s unclear what comes next. “God predetermined and he did what he wanted,” he said.

Others across the country are calling for Libya’s leaders to be taken to task. Hundreds of angry protesters gathered on Monday outside Derna’s main mosque, criticising the government’s lack of preparation and response. They lashed out at the political class that controls the oil-rich nation since the ouster and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Mr. Hassadi, the law graduate, blamed local authorities for giving conflicting warnings to residents, leaving many defenceless. They asked residents to evacuate areas along the Mediterranean coast, but at the same time, they imposed a curfew, preventing people from leaving their homes. “It was a mistake to impose a curfew,” he said.

The dams, Abu Mansour and Derna, were built by a Yugoslav construction company in the 1970s. They were meant to protect the city against heavy flooding, but years of no maintenance meant they were unable to keep the exceptional influx of water at bay.

Many Libyans are now calling for an international investigation and supervision of aid funds. “All are corrupt here … without exception,” said rights activist Tarik Lamloum.

Derna, Libya:

“I lost my daughter. Her mother is convinced that she is still alive. I am convinced that she is dead,” says Ahmed Ashour, 62. “The girl left me with a 3-month-old baby.”

A week after the flood that swept the centre of the city of Derna into the sea, families are still coping with the unbearable losses of their dead – and haunted by the unknown fates of the missing.

Ashour’s eldest sister is also gone, and her daughter too.

“When we saw what happened to other people, we can accept anything that happened to us,” she said.

The centre of Derna is a wasteland, with stray dogs standing listlessly on muddy mounds where buildings once stood. Other buildings still somehow stand precariously above bottom floors that were mostly washed away. The legs of a store mannequin in dusty trousers stick out of the rubble in a ruined shop-front.

Dams above the city burst in a storm a week ago, sending a huge torrent down a seasonal riverbed that runs through the centre of the city of 120,000 people.

Thousands are dead and thousands more missing. Officials using different methodologies have given widely varying figures of the tolls so far; the mayor estimates more than 20,000 people were lost. The World Health Organization has confirmed 3,922 deaths.

“Hopes of finding survivors are fading, but we will continue efforts to search for any possible survivor,” Othman Abduljaleel, health minister in the administration that controls eastern Libya, told Reuters by phone.

“Now efforts are focused on rescuing anyone and recovering bodies from under the rubble, especially at sea, with the participation of many divers and specialized rescue teams from countries.”

Failed State

The roads into Derna were clogged on Monday with ambulances and trucks carrying in food, water, diapers, mattresses and other supplies.

Western countries and regional states have sent teams of rescue workers and mobile hospitals. Five Greek rescue workers, including three members of the armed forces, were killed in a car crash on Sunday.

The recovery effort has been hampered by chaos in a nation that has been a failed state since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Derna is in the east, beyond the control of an internationally recognised government in the west, and until 2019 was held by a succession of terrorist groups including branches of al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Residents say the threat to the city from the crumbling dams above it had been widely known, with projects to repair the dams stalled for more than a decade. They also blame authorities for failing to evacuate residents in time.

The biggest threat to survivors may now come from contaminated water supplies.

“The flooding crisis has left thousands of people in the Derna region without access to clean and safe drinking water, posing an imminent threat to their health and well-being,” the International Rescue Committee charity said.

“Contaminated water can lead to the spread of waterborne diseases, putting vulnerable populations, especially women and children, at increased risk.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

The death count from catastrophic flooding in Libya’s eastern city of Derna has climbed to 11,300, the United Nations said in an update on Saturday, citing the Libyan Red Crescent.

Another 10,100 people are still missing in the devastated city, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, using Red Crescent figures.

Elsewhere in eastern Libya outside Derna, the flooding took an additional 170 lives, the update said.

“These figures are expected to rise as search-and-rescue crews work tirelessly to find survivors,” the UN update said.

Nearly a week after Storm Daniel hit northeastern Libya, “the humanitarian situation remains particularly grim in Derna,” the update said.

Severe drinking water problems have gripped the city, and at least 55 children were poisoned from drinking polluted water, it said.

In surrounding areas, most of which have seen years of armed conflict, the UN warned of the dangers of landmines shifting from floodwaters, threatening civilians who enter on foot.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)