Derna, Libya CNN —
Driving to Derna in the early hours of the morning was like arriving in a ghost town. There was an eerie silence in the city, which was hit by flash floods earlier this week that destroyed homes and streets.
Even at night, damage and destruction could be seen everywhere you looked. In daylight a scene of utter devastation unfolded.
For our team, traveling to the area with the Libyan National Army (LNA), it felt like driving into a war zone where massive bombs had exploded.
At least 5,000 people have died in Libya, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday, and thousands more are feared missing.
Everyone we have spoken to here fears and believes that the death toll will rise significantly in the coming days.
Officials told us that the destruction and loss of life occurred within about 90 minutes of the two dams above Derna bursting, sending floodwaters rushing through the city, destroying entire neighborhoods, homes and infrastructure and washing them into the sea.
People are in shock. This is a country that has seen years of unrest since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011 – but the disaster has hit Libyans hard.
They say they still can’t understand what happened. They are used to war and death, but nothing could have prepared them for it: they feel as if an entire city has been wiped out.
As we drove through one of the city entrances in the early hours of the morning, I saw a large handwritten plaque that read “Sad Derna.” Nearby, two young men sat around a fire in an otherwise pitch-dark street, their feet covered in mud and their clothes covered in dust. They waved to the LNA escort, smiled and made a “V” hand gesture.
Officials in the city are handling search and rescue operations, recovery, flood drainage and aid to displaced people – situations they have never had to deal with before. An official told CNN he does not believe the search for survivors is over.
Libyan officials say bodies are still washing up on the shores of Derna, days after the wall of water swept through the city.
The detritus of human life can also be seen in the waters of the Mediterranean – houses, door frames, windows, furniture, clothing, cars – everything.
At least 30,000 people have now been displaced there, the International Organization for Migration said on Thursday. Concern for the well-being of survivors is growing.
The head of the ICRC’s Libya delegation said it would take “many months, perhaps years” for residents to recover from the devastation wrought by Storm Daniel with its heavy rains.
Abdullah Doma/AFP/Getty Images
A man carries a child on his shoulder as he walks past a flash flood-affected area in Derna on September 14, 2023.
The flooding damaged roads and bridges, making access to the city and surrounding areas difficult. The journey from Benghazi airport to Derna took more than seven hours on Thursday evening – a journey that would normally take three hours.
Combined with the uncertain security situation, this makes it difficult for humanitarian aid to get through. But some Libyans told CNN they felt this tragedy had brought a divided country together, at least for now.
Libya has been wracked by political unrest since civil war erupted in 2014 and now has two rival governments, the eastern parliament-backed government in Benghazi and the internationally recognized government in Tripoli.
But driving from Benghazi, many cars could be seen arriving from various cities across Libya – from the far west and western mountains or the coastal city of Misrata to the south – with volunteers or aid supplies.
Some drivers had spray-painted their cars or raised flags with a phrase that could be translated as “brotherly solidarity” or “rush to the aid of our brothers.”
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
The volunteers flocking to Derna from across the country are trying to help with reconstruction efforts. However, some told CNN they were unequipped to handle such a situation.
One young man described volunteers tying ropes around their bodies to jump into the sea and retrieve bodies. He said he recovered 40 bodies in one day alone.
Volunteers say they need heavy equipment to remove large objects from the sea, such as cars, that are feared to contain bodies. They need divers and diving equipment, they say.
There is some international support on display here, including a Turkish rescue team on a rubber dinghy. But not nearly enough to deal with this catastrophe.
And upon landing at Benina Airport in Benghazi, there did not appear to be a large influx of aid, as one would expect after a disaster of this magnitude.
However, LNA officials said the support they received from the countries that sent teams helped them deal with an unprecedented situation.
Mohammad Shteiwi, a social media activist from Misrata who came to Derna to help with rescue operations, told CNN he saw international diving teams pull eight bodies from the water on Friday afternoon.
“Divers told me that they saw hundreds of bodies about 15 to 20 kilometers east of Derna port,” he said in a phone call.
“I have seen so many bodies in the last two days. I counted at least 200 bodies washed ashore. These were corpses that lay in buildings, were swallowed by the sea and pushed back to the shore. The statistics are not correct, there are a lot of numbers circulating. All I can tell you is that operations are underway. I took out bodies myself.”
Shteiwi said his “heart aches for all who were lost” but he sees a positive sign in Libyans from east and west coming together.
“Security forces that were once divided are now working together as if these differences were a thing of the past. It is painful to see that this union is the result of immense misery and immense pain.”