At least 150 people have died as a result of flooding brought on by heavy rains in eastern Libya, which was slammed by storm Daniel after Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria, an official source stated on Monday.
Osama Hamad, the head of the executive in eastern Libya, claimed on the Almasar channel that “more than 2,000 dead and thousands missing” had been reported in the city of Derna alone, but no source from the medical or rescue services has confirmed this death toll.
Although Mr. Hamad’s remarks were extensively echoed by the media in eastern Libya, the individual numbers they reported from various areas were much lower than those he presented.
“At least 150 people were killed due to flooding caused by storm Daniel in Derna, in the Jabal Al-Akhdar regions and in the suburbs of Al-Marj”, Mohamed Massoud, spokesman for the head of the eastern Libyan executive, told AFP earlier.
Storm Daniel, which experts have called “extreme in terms of the amount of water falling,” has recently claimed at least 27 lives in Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria.
On Sunday afternoon, Daniel struck eastern Libya, especially the northeastern coastal towns of Jabal al-Akhdar and Benghazi, where a curfew was imposed and schools were closed.
The primary oil fields and terminals are located in the east of the nation. The National Oil Company (NOC), whose activity has been significantly limited, has proclaimed a “state of maximum alert” and “suspended flights” between production sites.
On Sunday, rescue teams were sent to Derna, a city that was substantially devastated during hostilities in 2018 between Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s forces and the extremist Islamist organisations that occupied the area. Derna is located 900 kilometres east of Tripoli and 300 kilometres east of Benghazi.
A wadi that flows into the Mediterranean and crosses the seaside town, which has a population of over 100,000, flooded due to the storm by about fifty meters on each side, sweeping away buildings and homes in its path, according to videos carried by the media.
Derna was designated a “disaster area” earlier on Monday by Mr. Hamad before he left with his ministers. Numerous citizens are still stranded in difficult-to-reach places as rescue crews, backed by the army, try to help them.
The authorities in eastern Libya “lost contact with nine soldiers during rescue operations in this town”, according to Mr. Massoud.
Residents of eastern cities including Derna, al-Bayda, and smaller villages have captured images of stunning mudslides, entire neighbourhoods submerged in water, fallen roads, and damaged structures.
According to a member of the Derna municipal council, the situation in his city is “catastrophic,” “out of control,” and requires “national and international intervention.”
Mohamad al-Manfi, the head of the Presidential Council (PC), named the eastern Libyan cities of Derna, Shahat, and al-Bayda a “disaster zone” on Monday and requested “assistance from brotherly and friendly countries and international organisations.”
