September 12, 2023, 10:42 BST
Updated 9 minutes ago
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Watch: Floods rock the Libyan city of Derna
The death toll from floods in Libya is over 1,500 in one town alone, a minister visiting the eastern port of Derna told the BBC.
“I was shocked by what I saw, it’s like a tsunami,” said Hisham Chkiouat of the eastern-based government.
Large parts of Derna, home to around 100,000 people, are under water after two dams and four bridges collapsed.
According to the Red Crescent, up to 10,000 people are missing following flooding caused by Storm Daniel.
The eastern cities of Benghazi, Soussa and Al-Marj were also affected by the storm, which struck on Sunday.
Mr Chkiouat, the aviation minister and a member of the eastern government’s emergency committee, told BBC Newshour that the collapse of one of the dams south of Derna had washed large parts of the city into the sea.
“A huge quarter has been destroyed – there is a huge number of victims, which is increasing every hour.”
“There are currently 1,500 deaths. More than 2,000 missing people. We don’t have exact numbers, but it is a disaster,” he said, adding that “the collapsed dam has not been maintained for some time.”
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It is estimated that 25% of Derna was wiped out
Ahead of the storm, authorities in Derna imposed a nighttime curfew on Sunday as a precautionary measure and banned people from leaving their homes.
Hydraulic engineering experts told the BBC it was likely that the upper dam, about 12 km (eight miles) from the town, failed first – its water flowing down the river valley towards the second dam, estimated to be about a kilometer from the town There is a low-lying part of Derna where parts of the city were flooded.
Tunisia-based Libyan journalist Noura Eljerbi told the BBC she only found out that about 35 of her relatives, all living in the same block of flats in Derna, were still alive after contacting a local rescue team.
“They checked, the house was destroyed, but my family managed to escape before it got any worse. They are safe now,” she says, although she is still waiting to speak to them directly.
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The worst affected were the low-lying areas of Derna near the sea
Mr Chkiouat had previously told Portal that a quarter of the city had disappeared.
Tamer Ramadan, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Libya, told reporters the death toll was likely “huge.”
Speaking via video feed from neighboring Tunisia, he said: “Our teams on the ground are still making their assessment… we don’t have an exact number at the moment. The number of missing people so far is 10,000.”
Image source: Getty Images
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Entire neighborhoods in Derna were washed into the sea
According to BBC Weather, Bayda, a town about 165km west of Derna, recorded 414mm of rain in 24 hours during Storm Daniel. According to Climate-data.org, September is typically a dry month in northeastern Libya, and the recent downpour accounts for 77% of the average annual rainfall in Bayda.
In addition to areas in the east, the western city of Misrata was also affected by the floods.
Political chaos has reigned in Libya since long-time ruler Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed in 2011. The oil-rich country is effectively divided, with an internationally recognized interim government operating from the capital Tripoli and another in the east.
According to Libyan journalist Abdulkader Assad, this hampers rescue efforts as the various authorities are unable to respond quickly to a natural disaster.
“There are no rescue teams, there are no trained rescuers in Libya. “The last 12 years have been all about war,” he told the BBC.
“There are two governments in Libya… and that actually slows down the aid coming into Libya because it’s a little confusing. There are people who promise help, but the help doesn’t come.”
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It is hoped that help will arrive soon to support the rescue efforts
Mr Chkiouat said help was on the way and the eastern administration would accept help from the government in Tripoli, which had sent a plane carrying 14 tonnes of medical supplies, body bags and more than 80 doctors and paramedics.
US special envoy to Libya Richard Norton said Washington would send aid to eastern Libya in coordination with UN partners and Libyan authorities.
Egypt, Germany, Iran, Italy, Qatar and Turkey are among the countries that have said they have sent or are willing to send aid.
Derna lies about 250 km east of Benghazi on the coast and is surrounded by the nearby hills of the fertile Jabal Akhdar region.
The city was once where militants from the Islamic State group established a presence in Libya after the fall of Gaddafi. They were driven out a few years later by the Libyan National Army (LNA), a force loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, who is allied with the eastern government.
The powerful general said officials in the east are currently assessing the damage caused by the floods so that roads can be repaired and power restored to support rescue efforts.
“All official bodies, especially the Libyan Central Bank, should provide the urgently needed financial support so that those carrying out the work can do their work and advance the reconstruction,” Portal quoted him as saying in a televised address.
Libya’s leading Al-Wasat news website suggests that the failure to properly rebuild and maintain infrastructure in Derna after years of conflict is partly responsible for the high death toll.
“The security chaos and the negligence of the Libyan authorities in strictly monitoring security measures.” [of the dams] “The crisis has led to catastrophe,” she quoted economic expert Mohammed Ahmed as saying.
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