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Watch: BBC finds little foreign help in flood-hit Derna
An official in eastern Libya has rejected allegations that many of those killed in last weekend’s devastating floods had been ordered to stay in their homes.
Othman Abdul Jalil, a spokesman for the Benghazi-based government, told the BBC that soldiers had warned people in the city of Derna to flee.
He denied that people had been told not to evacuate, but acknowledged that some may have thought the threat was exaggerated.
Meanwhile, BBC teams in Derna say aid agencies have not yet arrived in the city.
While reporters watched central Derna bustle with activity – rescuers, ambulance crews and forensic teams working to identify the dead – there was little sign of major international aid organizations.
A spokesman for one organization said trying to coordinate relief efforts in the country was “a nightmare.”
“Libya was already complicated a week ago,” said Tomasso Della Longa of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
Making matters worse, the floods have destroyed key infrastructure such as roads and telecommunications systems.
The reported death toll varies between around 6,000 and 11,000. With many more thousands still missing, Derna’s mayor warned the total could rise to 20,000.
The BBC was told that the bodies of some victims washed ashore more than 100 km (60 miles) from Derna after being swept out to sea.
A spokesman for the UN humanitarian office, Jens Laerke, told the BBC that there were still survivors and bodies under the rubble and that it would take some time to know the true number of victims.
“We are trying not to experience a second disaster there. It is critical to prevent a health crisis and provide shelter, clean water and food,” he said.
According to a UN report, more than 1,000 people have been buried in mass graves so far.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged disaster relief workers to stop as hasty burial in mass graves can cause long-term psychological distress for grieving family members.
Thousands of people died when two dams burst on Sunday as a result of Storm Daniel, washing entire neighborhoods into the Mediterranean.
Survivors have described horrific escape attempts and people being swept away before their eyes.
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Entire neighborhoods were washed into the Mediterranean
It is said that the country’s fragmented political situation is making the recovery more difficult. Libya is split between two rival governments – with the United Nations-backed government based in the capital Tripoli and the rival Egyptian-backed government based in Benghazi.
Questions about evacuation orders
There have been widespread allegations that the two collapsed dams were not well maintained and calls are growing for an urgent investigation into how the flooding became so catastrophic.
There are also conflicting reports about whether and when people were asked to leave their homes. Residents have told the BBC they have received mixed messages from the two rival governments about whether they should stay or go.
Guma El-Gamaty, a Libyan academic and leader of the Taghyeer party, said on Thursday that people in the flood zone should have been evacuated, but “on the contrary, they were told to stay there, stay in their houses and not go out.” “.
But Derna’s mayor told Arabic news channel Al-Hadath that he “personally ordered the evacuation of the city three or four days before the disaster.” The BBC was unable to verify Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi’s claims.
As the weather worsened, police and military urged people to leave their homes for higher ground, survivors told the BBC.
But it seemed that many people did not take the threat seriously.
“Many of them did, but unfortunately sometimes people said, ‘Well, that’s an exaggeration, that might not be the case,'” an official in Libya’s unofficial eastern government told the BBC’s Newshour.
There are also allegations that officials appeared on Libyan television on Sunday evening ordering people to stay in their homes because of the bad weather. But the same official, Othman Abdul Jalil, denied this.
It is still too early to confidently attribute the severity of this storm to rising global temperatures. However, climate change is believed to be increasing the frequency of the world’s most powerful storms.
Prof Liz Stephens, an expert in climate risk and resilience at Britain’s University of Reading, said scientists were confident that climate change was driving up rainfall associated with such storms.
On Friday, Martin Griffiths, a senior U.N. official, said the disaster was “a huge reminder” of climate change and the challenge it poses.