BENGHAZI: A powerful storm and heavy floods have killed 150 people in the eastern Libyan city of Derna over the last two days and the death toll is expected to rise to 250, the head of the Red Crescent in Benghazi said on Monday.

Footage on social media showed people stranded on the roofs of their vehicles as Storm Daniel hit Benghazi, Sousse, Al Bayda, Al-Marj and Derna, a city on the Mediterranean some 250km east of Benghazi.

“We recorded at least 150 deaths after the collapse of buildings. We expect death toll to rise to 250. The situation is very catastrophic,” Red Crescent’s Kais Fhakeri said.

The toll in other areas was not immediately clear.

Heavy flows wash away cars, collapse roads as water level crosses three metres in urban areas

Images filmed by residents of the Libyan disaster area showed massive mudslides, collapsed buildings and entire neighbourhoods submerged under muddy water.

Speaking on Libyan network Almasar, Oussama Hamad, prime minister of the east-based government, reported “more than 2,000 dead and thousands missing” in the city of Derna alone, but no medical sources or emergency services have confirmed such figures.

A Derna city council official described the situation in the city as “catastrophic” and in need of “national and international intervention”, speaking to the local TV channel Libya al-Ahrar.

He reported the collapse of four main bridges, two buildings and two dams in Derna, a city of 100,000 people that lies in a river wadi 900 kilometres (560 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.

Heavy flows washed away vehicles, footage broadcast by eastern Libya’s Almostkbal TV showed. The channel also posted pictures of a collapsed road between Sousse and Shahat, home to the Greek-founded and Unesco-listed archaeological site Cyrene.

Witnesses said the water level had reached three metres (10 feet) in Derna.

Four major oil ports in Libya — Ras Lanuf, Zueitina, Brega and Es Sidra — were closed from Saturday evening for three days, two oil engineers said.

Search-and-rescue operations were ongoing, witnesses said. Authorities declared a state of extreme emergency, closing schools and stores and imposing a curfew.

‘Beseiged by water’

“I was able to flee with my family this morning,” said Saleh al-Obaidi, a resident, adding that houses near a valley in the city had collapsed. “People were asleep and woke up and found their homes surrounded by water,” he said.

Ahmed Mohamed, another resident, said: “We were asleep, and when we woke up, we found water besieging the house. We are inside and trying to get out.”

The missing persons include seven members of the Libyan National Army (LNA), its spokesman, Ahmad Mismari, said. The LNA is led by Khalifa Haftar which controls the eastern part of the divided country.

Multiple govts

Libya’s eastern-based parliament declared three days of mourning. Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, prime minister of the interim government in Tripoli, also declared three days of mourning in all the affected cities, calling them “disaster areas”.

His administration holds little sway in eastern Libya, but Dbeibah said on Sunday he had directed all state agencies to immediately deal with the damage and floods in eastern cities.

Dbeibah’s government is recognised by the Central Bank of Libya, which disburses funds to government departments across the country.

The United Nations in Libya also said it was following the storm closely and would “provide urgent relief assistance in support of response efforts at local and national levels”.

Experts have described storm Daniel — which killed at least 27 people when it struck parts of Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria in recent days — as “extreme in terms of the amount of water falling in a space of 24 hours”.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2023