After two dams collapsed under the weight of heavy rains, unleashing tremendous floodwaters that swept away everything in their path, the eastern Libyan city of Derna on Wednesday estimated the number of fatalities at thousands and feared a very high death toll.
The number of casualties of the accident, which could have left several thousand people dead or missing, is yet unknown given the limited access to this town of 100,000 residents.
According to pictures shared on social media, the populace had to make due with crude tools to remove remains buried by the dozen in mass graves because roads were cut off, landslides, and floods prevented rescue personnel from reaching the area.
Despite efforts by the authorities to restore cell phone and internet networks, Derna and other villages are essentially cut off from the outside world.
There have been “thousands” of deaths, according to authorities in the east and their adversaries in the west.
Osama Ali, a spokesperson for the internationally recognised government in Tripoli’s “Emergency and Rescue Service” in Libya, told AFP on Tuesday that the floods in Derna had resulted in “more than 2,300 dead” and “around 7,000 injured,” with more than 5,000 people still unaccounted for.
An “huge” death toll that may reach the thousands has been recorded, with 10,000 people still unaccounted for, according to an IFRC officer.
Since the enormous earthquake that devastated the eastern town of al-Marj in 1963, this is the deadliest natural calamity to strike Libya’s Cyrenaica province in the east.
Storm Daniel made landfall on Libya’s eastern coast on Sunday afternoon, striking the city of Benghazi before moving east towards the cities of the Jabal al-Akhdar (north-east), including Shahat (Cyrene), al-Marj, al-Bayda, and Soussa (Apollonia), but most notably Derna, the city that was most severely damaged.
The two dams on Wadi Derna that keep the waters of the wadi that flows through the city in check collapsed on Sunday night.
Witnesses informed Libyan media that they heard a “huge explosion” before torrential downpours swept entire neighbourhoods, bridges, and buildings into the Mediterranean, overflowing the riverbanks.
The sea had turned mud-colored by Tuesday, and bodies started washing ashore. A military chopper can be seen removing bodies off a beach that is littered with iron and other debris in photos that were released by Libyan media on Tuesday.
Even though aid is still coming in dribs and drabs, individuals are mobilizing to assist the victims both in Libya and overseas.
Convoys carrying supplies are travelling to Derna from Tripolitania in the west. Abdelhamid Dbeibah is in charge of Tripoli’s administration, which has announced the despatch of two air ambulances, a helicopter, 87 doctors, a group of rescuers, search dogs, and technicians from the national energy company in an effort to immediately restore the power that has been turned off.
According to the authorities, rescue teams from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have also arrived in eastern Libya.
