Heavy rains in northeastern Libya caused two dams to fall, flooding previously flooded areas and killing at least 5,000 people and leaving another 10,000 missing.
The statistics of missing individuals were given on Tuesday during a briefing with reporters in Geneva, Switzerland by Tamer Ramadan, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies delegation in Libya. It’s a huge loss of life,” she remarked.
On Tuesday, the interior ministry of the eastern Libyan government told state media LANA that at least 5,300 people were presumed dead. The number of fatalities and the number of people still missing have not been independently confirmed by CNN.
Libya’s northern city
Officials in Libya’s northern city of Tobruk confirmed on Tuesday that at least 145 Egyptians were among the dead.
According to Libya’s Almasar TV, Othman Abduljalil, the health minister in the eastern administration, as many as 6,000 persons are still missing in the devastated eastern city of Derna. On Monday, he visited the city and said it was in a “catastrophic” state.
Authorities in the city fear that entire neighbourhoods were wiped out by the flooding.
Osama Aly, a spokesman for the Emergency and Ambulance service, reported that the hospitals in Derna were inoperable and the mortuaries were packed.
According to CNN’s reporting, corpses have been dumped on the streets outside of mortuaries.
First-hand emergency services are not available. Anas Barghathy, a doctor who is now volunteering in Derna, said that people are currently labouring to gather the decaying bodies.
Everyone here is petrified.
After witnessing videos of the flooding and hearing nothing from their loved ones, relatives of those who resided in the ruined city of Derna told CNN that they were afraid.
Palestinian woman Ayah has cousins in Derna, but she hasn’t been able to contact them since the flooding.
I’m concerned for their safety. My two cousins currently call Derna home. I can’t even tell if they’re still alive because communications have apparently broken down. The videos emerging from Derna are terrible. “Everyone is scared,” she confessed.
Tobrok resident Emad Milad reported that eight members of his family perished in the flooding in Derma.
My wife’s aunt and uncle have both recently gone away. All of his relatives have likewise perished. There are now zero traces of eight people. Basically, it’s a catastrophe. Basically, it’s a catastrophe. On Tuesday he stated, “We are praying for better things.”
Read More : For two rapes, Danny Masterson received a life sentence plus 30 years in prison.
Extremely “ferocious” weather
A severe low-pressure system that brought devastating floods to Greece last week went into the Mediterranean and evolved into a tropical-like cyclone known as a medicane, causing the rain that has swept across multiple cities in Libya’s north-east.
The catastrophic storm is only the latest in a string of climate disasters and record-breaking weather extremes that have plagued the world this year.
Scientists believe the storm’s tremendous rainfall was propelled by the Mediterranean’s above-average temperature, just as ocean temperatures around the world surge to record highs owing to planet-warming pollution.
According to climate scientist and meteorologist at Germany’s Leipzig University, Karsten Haustein, “the warmer water does not only fuel those storms in terms of rainfall intensity, it also makes them more ferocious,” as quoted by the Science Media Centre.
The political crisis in Libya has been going on for over a decade, with two different regimes vying for control of the country.
The United Nations (UN) recognises Abdulhamid Dbeibeh’s Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli, while Khalifa Haftar controls the east with the Libyan National Army (LNA) and backs Osama Hamad’s parliament in the east.
About 300 kilometres (190 miles) east of Benghazi, Haftar and his eastern administration have taken control of Derna.
Leslie Mabon, a lecturer in Environmental Systems at The Open University, told the Science Media Centre that the country’s complex politics “pose challenges for developing risk communication and hazard assessment strategies, coordinating rescue operations, and also potentially for maintenance of critical infrastructure such as dams.”
Dam failures occur
On Tuesday, authorities reported that two dams had collapsed, flooding the city of Derna.
The destruction of three bridges. Ahmed Mismari, a spokesman for the LNA, said that entire neighbourhoods were swept away by the flood waters and dumped into the ocean.
