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.

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.)

Flash flooding in east Libya caused by Storm Daniel tore through the coastal city of Derna, leaving nearly 4,000 people dead, 10,000 missing and entire neighbourhoods in ruins.

This is what we know so far about the extreme weather event that hit war-torn Libya.

Dams burst

On Sunday afternoon, Storm Daniel made landfall on Libya’s east coast after earlier lashing Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey.

It touched Benghazi before veering towards the Jabal al-Akhdar district towns of Shahat, Al-Marj, Al-Bayda, Susa and Derna, devastating that city of 100,000 people.

Derna lies in a river wadi 900 kilometres (560 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.

Overnight, two dams on Wadi Derna burst, unleashing torrents of water that destroyed bridges and swept away entire neighbourhoods before spilling into the Mediterranean.

Roads that were already in a poor state were cut, and access to some affected areas became impossible.

Huge toll

Officials in the east of the divided country give different toll estimates, with one speaking of at least 3,840 dead.

However, most fear the figure will be far higher.

Tamer Ramadan of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Tuesday “the death toll is huge and might reach thousands”, with another 10,000 missing.

The International Organization for Migration on Wednesday said at least 30,000 people were displaced in Derna, as well as 3,000 in Al-Bayda, 1,000 in Al-Mkheley and 2,085 in Benghazi.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said late Thursday an estimated 884,000 people directly impacted by the storm and flash floods in five provinces need assistance.

Authorities mobilise

The authorities in Libya’s east and west, faced by the appalling human and material devastation caused by the floods, have mobilised, taking emergency measures to come to the aid of those stricken by the disaster.

Aid convoys from Tripolitania in the west have been sent to Derna.

The internationally recognised Tripoli government of Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah said it was sending two air ambulances and a helicopter, as well as rescuers, 87 doctors, canine search teams and workers to try to restore electricity.

International response

Relief missions have gathered pace with Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates among the first nations to rush aid to the disaster-hit country.

The United Nations has launched an appeal for more than $71 million to aid the hundreds of thousands in need.

The world body also called for a sea corridor to be established for emergency relief and evacuations.

The European Union said assistance from Germany, Romania and Finland had been dispatched including hospital tents and power generators, as well as food, water tanks and blankets.

The United States, Algeria, Qatar, Italy, France and Tunisia have all also offered assistance.

The United Arab Emirates sent two aid planes carrying 150 tonnes of food, relief and medical supplies.

Kuwait sent a plane with 40 tonnes of supplies, and Jordan sent a military aircraft loaded with food parcels, tents, blankets and mattresses.

Egypt’s armed forces chief of staff, an ally of east Libya military strongman Khalifa Haftar, flew to Benghazi on Tuesday aboard a plane loaded with relief supplies and personnel, reports said.

‘Medicane’

Storm Daniel gathered strength during an unusually hot summer and earlier lashed Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, flooding vast areas and killing at least 27 people.

Climate experts say it bears the features of tropical cyclones and hurricanes known as “medicanes” which tend to form in the Mediterranean near the North African coast.

Medicanes form once or twice per year on average, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

While scientists generally avoid direct links between individual weather events and long-term global warming, Storm Daniel “is illustrative of the type of devastating flooding event we may expect increasingly in the future”, said Lizzie Kendon, a climate science professor at the University of Bristol.

The EU’s climate monitoring service Copernicus said rising global sea surface temperatures were driving record levels of heat across the globe, with 2023 likely to be the warmest in human history.