Local officials yesterday evening confirmed that the death toll after two catastrophic dam collapses on Sunday has reached 6,000.
Torrential rains caused the two dams to burst near the coastal city of Derna, destroying much of the city and carrying entire neighborhoods into the sea. The city, with a population of 90,000, is bisected by the Wadi Derna, a seasonal river that flows from highlands further south, and is normally protected from flooding by dams.
And though the scale of the disaster was still unclear as at press time, the Red Cross has said at least 10,000 people were missing. The floodwaters also swept through other eastern settlements, including Shahhat, Al-Bayda and Marj, and at least 20,000 people were displaced.
Yesterday, a local official speaking to al-Masar said that another dam in the eastern region was filled with water and on the brink of collapse. The Jaza dam located between Derna and the city of Benghazi needed maintenance to prevent another disaster, the mayor of the municipality of Tocra, Mahmoud Al Sharaima, said.
Reports say the death toll is likely to rise in the coming days. Front-line workers were still combing through the flood debris. With no telephone or internet service, the city was cut off from the rest of the country, and help began to arrive 36 hours after the devastation.
The floods damaged or destroyed many roads, making it harder to access those who needed help. The flooding left bodies scattered in the streets while buckling buildings, sinking vehicles and blocking roads, impeding access to the most stricken areas.
Storm Daniel formed over Greece on September 4, 2023. It caused strong winds, heavy rains, flooding and deaths there and in Turkey and Bulgaria before crossing the Mediterranean. The storm made landfall in Libya a few days later, causing flooding on Sunday in cities along its eastern coast, including Benghazi, Bayda and Derna.
With no telephone or internet service, the city was cut off from the rest of the country, and help began to arrive 36 hours after the devastation. The floods damaged or destroyed many roads, making it harder to access those who needed help.
Analysts said the country’s woes: political division, economic instability, corruption, environmental degradation and dilapidated infrastructure seemed to coalesce in one catastrophe when the dams south of the city collapsed. The flooding came days after an earthquake in Morocco, another North African nation, killed more than 2,900 people.
Libya is in effect under the control of two rival administrations, the internationally recognized Government in Tripoli, and authorities based along with the parliament in the east.
But to Anas El Gomati, director of the Sadeq Institute, a Libyan policy research center, the two events felt profoundly different, given the unpredictable timing of the earth’s tremors compared with a storm like Daniel, which can be forecast hours or days ahead.
Derna was the hardest hit after two dams burst upstream from the city, releasing an estimated 30 million cubic metres (39 million cubic yards) of water that tore through the city of about 100,000 inhabitants. The water raced down Wadi Derna from the mountains to the sea. Deputy Mayor Ahmed Madroud said the way the city was built put most of the population in the water’s direct path.
The dams had not been maintained for more than two decades, and the infrastructure was not built to withstand the effects of this week’s floods, Madroud said. Front-line workers are still combing through the flood debris.
Even after the storm displayed its destructive power last week in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, killing more than a dozen people, Libyan authorities seemed to have no serious plan to monitor the dams, warn residents or evacuate them, Mr. El Gomati said.
The flooding recalled the effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the storm struck Louisiana and became a calamity after levees in New Orleans ruptured, inundating vast parts of the city. It also underscored how climate change can combine with political conflicts and economic failure to magnify the scale of disasters.
…Humanitarian response ramps up
United Nations agencies and partners are responding to the disaster, humanitarians told reporters in Geneva yesterday.
The United States, Germany, Iran, Italy, Qatar and Turkey are among the countries that have said they have sent or are ready to send aid. US president Joe Biden said yesterday that Washington was sending emergency funds to agencies working on the disaster.
Turkey has dispatched three cargo planes to the city of Benghazi, with 168 search and rescue specialists and other aid including tents, generators, raincoats and torches. Neighbouring Egypt has also said it will send soldiers and helicopters to help with recovery work.
The Libyan Government has announced three days of mourning in all the affected cities, calling them “disaster areas.” Emergency responders, government workers and residents were digging through rubble to look for survivors.
In a statement released by his Spokesperson, UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his heartfelt condolences to the Libyan authorities and the families of those who have perished,
“At this time, our thoughts are with the thousands of people being affected there in their communities, we stand in solidarity with all people in Libya during this difficult time”, said Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, briefing reporters in New York.
He said the UN team on the ground is responding at the site. “Furthermore, we are mobilizing resources and emergency teams to support those affected people and are working with local, national, and international partners to get urgently needed humanitarian assistance to people in the affected areas.”
The UN is working with Libyan authorities to assess needs and support ongoing relief efforts, he added. “The humanitarian needs are huge and much more beyond the abilities of the Libyan Red Crescent, and even beyond the abilities of the Government”, stressed Tamar Ramadan, head of the IFRC delegation in Libya, who was speaking from Tunis via videoconference.
“That’s why the Government in the east has issued an international appeal for support.” Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization (WHO), said the flooding was of “epic proportions”.
“There’s not been a storm like this in the region in living memory, so it’s a great shock,” she said. Dr. Harris added that WHO has deployed prepositioned aid supplies to the affected areas. She estimated that torrential rain affected up to 1.8 million people and damaged and even “wiped out” some hospitals.
“The work now is really to get in supplies, sadly some of those supplies are things like body bags, but also trauma kits,” the WHO spokesperson said. “Our second priority is to look at the people who are displaced”, WHO’s Dr Harris said.
“There are lots of people who are already living in precarious circumstances. And we have to look at what kind of field hospitals can be set up, and what kind of mobile clinics. So there’s a great deal of work that needs to be done and is being mobilized as I speak.”
Libya has become a key springboard for migrants from over 40 countries heading for Europe, who most likely have also been severely impacted by the floods, the UN migration agency (IOM) warned.
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