Thousands of people have died in Libya in floods caused by heavy rains that devastated parts of the country this weekend. The disaster was worsened by the collapse of two dams in the coastal town of Derna, aid groups said on Tuesday.
Tamer Ramadan, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ delegation to Libya, said the death toll from the floods was expected to reach thousands in the coming days. Speaking to reporters at a U.N. briefing via videoconference from Tunisia, he said 10,000 people were missing and that those figures were based on reports from the Libyan Red Crescent on the ground.
A Libyan rescue and rescue agency said at least 2,300 people had died and more than 5,000 were missing after heavy rains over the weekend in northeast Libya caused water to swell over river banks, sweeping away houses and paralyzing roads.
The collapse of dams south of Derna compounded the disaster after they released water that surged through the city, washing “entire neighborhoods” into the sea, said Ahmed al-Mismari, a spokesman for the Libyan National Army, the dominant political force in the area said in a televised press conference on Monday.
Libya has been divided for years between an internationally recognized government based in Tripoli and a separately administered region in the east, including Derna. The Ambulance and Emergency Services Department, which announced the numbers of dead and missing, is linked to the government in the West, which said it had sent rescue teams to the East.
An official from the administration that controls the east told Portal on Tuesday that more than 1,000 bodies had been recovered so far.
Mr. al-Mismari said in Monday’s televised news conference that more than 2,000 people were believed to be dead in Derna alone and that up to 5,000 to 6,000 were missing, a number he said “could rise massively.” Conditions that make it difficult to organize rescue and relief operations.
“It is the first time we have faced such weather conditions,” Mr al-Mismari said. Citizens who fled Derna left the city “as if they were born today, with nothing,” he said.
It was unclear Tuesday how different authorities in Libya were coordinating search and rescue efforts as medical teams converged on the region to treat survivors and search for the thousands missing.
Richard Norland, the U.S. special envoy to Libya, said on the U.S. Embassy’s account on “We can best use official US aid in a targeted manner.” It was not immediately clear whether international aid had already reached the affected areas.
Deliveries of relief supplies, including body bags and medical equipment, left the capital Tripoli for the city of Benghazi early Tuesday morning, the interim government in Tripoli said on its Facebook page. A medical convoy of doctors, nurses and other volunteer rescue workers arrived in Benghazi on Tuesday morning, it said. According to the Libyan television channel al-Masar, Turkish rescue teams also arrived in the city on Tuesday. Benghazi is more than 180 miles by road from Derna.
Exact figures on the death toll are difficult to obtain as search operations continue, a spokesman for authorities in the region said on Monday evening.
Derna seemed to have suffered the worst. Local officials in the port city have declared the area a disaster zone. The city council confirmed on Monday on its Facebook page that the roads into the city had been closed. It called for the opening of a sea passage to the coastal city and urgent international intervention.
“The situation is catastrophic,” the council said. “The city of Derna is asking for help.”
Telephone service was restored on Tuesday through one of the telecommunications companies in some areas of Derna after communications were disrupted for about two days.
One of the biggest challenges for Libyans affected by the disaster was the difficulty of communicating with their families and loved ones to check on their well-being. Since yesterday, Facebook posts in several groups have been filled with inquiries from relatives outside Derna about the status of those there. After the telephone networks collapsed, means of communication were no longer available.
The heavy rains were part of a weather front that triggered severe flooding in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria last week, sweeping away buildings and killing more than a dozen people before moving toward Libya.
The storm continued into Egypt, although its impact there appeared to be less severe. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ordered the country’s armed forces to send “immediate assistance and humanitarian assistance by air and sea” to Libya and Morocco, where a deadly earthquake struck on Friday.
Libya is particularly vulnerable to climate change and the increasingly violent storms that warmer weather brings. According to the United Nations, warming is causing the waters of the Mediterranean to expand and sea levels to rise by 2.8 millimeters per year, eroding coastlines and causing flooding, with low-lying coastal areas of the country particularly at risk.
Nada Rashwan reported from Cairo and Isabella Kwai from London.