DERNA: As Libya was reeling on Wednesday from a massive flood that left thousands dead and missing, wreaking havoc in the eastern city of Derna, relief missions gathered pace with Turkiye, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates among the first nations to rush aid to the country.

The Mediterranean coastal city of Derna was hit by a huge flash flood late Sunday that witnesses likened to a tsunami after two upstream dams burst when torrential rains brought by Storm Daniel battered the region.

Footage broadcast on social media by state media showed an apocalyptic landscape in the city, with debris littering streets and people lifting sheets off bodies lying on sidewalks to try to identify them.

Satellite images of Derna after the surge of water showed coastal neighbourhoods almost entirely submerged.

Death toll in Derna may double from 5,300, says minister

The UN has pledged $10 million in support for survivors, including at least 30,000 people it said had been left homeless in Derna. The wall of water ripped away buildings, vehicles and the people inside them. Many were swept out into the sea, with bodies later washing up on beaches littered with debris and car wrecks.

Traumatised survivors have dug through the mud-caked ruins of shattered buildings to recover bodies, scores of which were lying out in the open before being buried in mass graves.

The confirmed death toll reached 2,300 by Tuesday afternoon, but some regional officials were quoted as giving figures more than twice as high.

“The death toll is huge and might reach thousands,” Tamer Ramadan of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IRFC) said on Tuesday. He added the organisation had independent sources saying that “the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 persons so far”.

The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA on Wednesday reported estimates of “over 2,000 deaths and at least 5,000 people missing”.

However, a minister in the regional administration said on Wednesday that more than 5,300 bodies have been counted in the Libyan city of Derna and the toll is expected to increase significantly and may even double, after the city was hit by catastrophic floods.

The “sea is constantly dumping dozens of bodies”, Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation in the administration that runs eastern Libya, told Reuters, adding that reconstruction would cost billions of dollars.

Rescue efforts

Rescue teams from Turkiye have arrived in eastern Libya, authorities said, and Algeria, France, Italy, Qatar and Tunisia also pledged to help.

The UAE sent two planes carrying 150 tonnes of aid. The European Union said assistance from Germany, Romania and Finland had been dispatched. A Kuwaiti flight took off Wednesday with 40 tonnes of supplies, the IFRC said.

Palestinian media reported a rescue mission had left from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, and Jordan sent a military plane loaded with food parcels, tents, blankets and mattresses.

Several nations offered urgent aid and rescue teams to help address what one UN official called “a calamity of epic proportions”.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis invited prayers “for those who lost their lives, their families and the displaced”.

Climate experts have linked Libya’s deadly disaster to a combination of the impacts of a heating planet and of the country’s years of political chaos and underinvestment in infrastructure.

Hurricane-strength Mediterranean storms such as Daniel — which earlier hit Turkiye, Bulgaria and Greece — are known as “medicanes” which can gain strength as warmer air absorbs more moisture.

Climate-linked extreme weather events tend to be the deadliest in strife-torn and poor countries that lack good infrastructure, early warning systems and strong emergency response services.

As the world heats up, Libya’s disaster “is illustrative of the type of devastating flooding event we may expect increasingly in the future,” said University of Bristol climate science professor Lizzie Kendon.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2023