Floods caused by Storm Daniel in eastern Libya devastated a large part of the city of Derna, cost thousands of lives and left countless others missing.
On September 10, storm Daniel reached the eastern coast of Libya, hitting the metropolis of Benghazi before heading east towards several cities such as Al-Bayda, but especially Derna, which had 100,000 inhabitants before the tragedy. .
During the night of September 10 to 11, the two dams on Wadi Derna, which hold back the waters of the wadi which crosses the city, failed. Powerful torrents destroyed bridges and swept away entire neighborhoods with their inhabitants on both sides of the wadi, before flowing into the Mediterranean.
The death toll continues to rise. At least 11,300 people have died and 10,100 remain missing in the town of Derna alone, in the east of the country, ravaged almost a week ago by unprecedented floods, according to a report published on the night of Saturday in Sunday by a UN agency, citing the Libyan Red Crescent. The Libyan Red Crescent, however, denied this assessment.
Floods have also killed at least 170 people in other places in eastern Libya, he added. “These numbers are expected to rise as search and rescue teams work around the clock,” OCHA warned.
Dilapidated infrastructure, construction in violation of urban planning rules over the last decade and a lack of preparation for this type of disaster have transformed Derna into an open-air cemetery, according to experts. Most of the deaths “could have been avoided,” said Petteri Taalas, head of the World Meteorological Organization, which depends on the UN, on Thursday. Years of conflict in Libya have “largely destroyed the weather observation network,” as have the computer systems, he said.
The two dams at the origin of the disaster had cracks since 1998, said Saturday the Libyan Attorney General, Al-Seddik al-Sour, who opened an investigation. Work was started in 2010 by a Turkish company after years of delay, but suspended a few months later in the wake of the Libyan revolution of 2011, and it has never resumed since, according to the prosecutor.
Libya has indeed been plunged into chaos since the death of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with two rival governments, one recognized by the UN based in the capital Tripoli, in the west, the other in the eastern region. affected by floods.
The international aid promised at the start of the disaster is arriving and being organized. Two planes loaded with aid, one from the United Arab Emirates, the other from Iran, landed in Benghazi, noted an AFP journalist. The WHO announced that 29 tonnes of medical equipment had arrived in Benghazi, about 300 kilometers from Derna.
Finland, Germany and Romania sent aid. Neighboring Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait also sent planes carrying aid. Algeria, France, Italy, Qatar, Tunisia and the United States have also offered help. The United Nations has launched an appeal for more than $71 million to help hundreds of thousands of people in need.
Also read: Floods in Libya: “An additional step in the difficult reconstruction of the country”
The huge floods in Libya follow a “medicane”, a rare but destructive weather phenomenon that scientists believe will intensify in a warming world. This term, little known to the general public but regularly used by scientists and meteorologists, is a portmanteau made up of the words “Mediterranean” and “hurricane” (“hurricane” in English).
In addition to their violent winds, the “medicanes” are also accompanied by torrential rains. Storm Daniel dumped up to 170 millimeters of water in less than two days on Cyrenaica, in northeastern Libya, where rain is very rare this season. Surface waters in the eastern Mediterranean and Atlantic are two to three degrees Celsius higher than usual in early September, which may have given a boost to Storm Daniel, scientists say.
