DERNA: Libya was reeling on Wednesday from a massive flood disaster that killed at least 5,300 people when a surge of water devastated the eastern city of Derna, leaving another ten thousand missing.
Relief missions gathered pace with Egypt, Turkiye, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) among the first countries to rush aid to the war-hit country, and the United Nations (UN) pledging 10 million dollars in support for survivors, including more than thirty thousand people left homeless.
The Mediterranean coastal city of Derna was hit by a major flash flood late Sunday that witnesses likened to a tsunami after 2 upstream dams burst when torrential rains brought by Storm Daniel hit the region, AFP reported.
The wall of water ripped away whole buildings, cars, and the people inside them. Many were swept out into the Mediterranean Sea, with bodies later found on beaches littered with car wrecks and debris.
Traumatized survivors have dug through the mud-caked ruins of destroyed buildings to recover victims’ bodies, many of which were lying wrapped in blankets out in the open before being buried in mass graves.
War Effects on Libya
Oil-rich Libya is still recovering from the years of war and chaos that followed the NATO-supported uprising that toppled and killed longtime strongman Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.
The country has been left divided between two rival administrations — the UN-brokered, internationally recognized government based in Tripoli and a separate government in the disaster-hit east.
The city, a three hundred-kilometer drive east of Benghazi, is ringed by hills and bisected by a riverbed that is usually dry in summer but which became a raging torrent that also washed away several bridges.
Mudslides and flooding also nattered nearby areas of eastern Libya where, aid group the Norwegian Refugee Council said, whole villages have been overwhelmed by the floods, and the death figures continue to rise.
It said that communities across the country have endured years of conflict, displacement, and poverty. The latest calamity will exacerbate the situation for these people. Shelters and Hospitals will be overstretched.
