1,700 people died in one of the two districts of the city and 500 died in the other – “The bodies are everywhere” – Dams were broken by the floods
More than 2,000 people were killed and at least 10,000 missingi in Libya after catastrophic floods causing dams to break, buildings to collapse and up to a quarter of the eastern coastal city of Derna to disappear
Officials expected the death toll to rise further after it passed bad weather daniel, as Libya is a country divided and fragmented after a decade of conflict.
At Derna, a city of about 125,000 inhabitants, his journalists Reuters they saw devastated neighborhoods, cars washed away by the waters, streets covered in mud and debris, left behind by a large torrent after the dams were destroyed.
Mohamad al-Qabisi, director of Wahda Hospital, said that 1,700 people died in one of the two districts of the city and 500 died in the other. Reuters reporters saw several bodies in the corridors of the hospital.
“The dead bodies are everywhere – in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings,” Hichem Abu Chiwat, civil aviation minister in the administration that controls the east, told Reuters by telephone shortly after visiting Derna.
“I am not exaggerating when I say that the 25% of the city has disappeared. Many, many buildings have collapsed.”
Dramatic testimonies of residents of Derna
Survivors of the floods in Libya described hearing an explosion as one of two dams in Derna broke and a tsunami engulfed the city, with water rising up to the third floor of buildings. Some they were saved by jumping from a roof on rooftops, others stayed for hours inside their flooded apartments, with water almost up to the ceiling.
Raja Sasi, 39, fled with his wife and daughter when the water reached the upper floor of their house. All other family members were lost.
“At first we thought it was just heavy rain but it was midnight we heard a huge explosion. It was the dam that broke,” he said, describing the streets of the city center as littered with the dead.
His wife, 31-year-old Nouria al-Hassadi, who was holding tightly to their little daughter during their escape, he called it a “miracle” that they were saved.
Safia Mustafa, 41, a mother of two boys, said that they managed to leave from the house before the building collapsed. They climbed onto the roof and escaped by jumping onto the roofs of neighboring buildings. Her son Obai, 10, said he was praying to God to save them.
Saliha Abu Bark, a 46-year-old lawyer, said she and her two sisters were saved but their mother was killed. The water flooded the building where they lived, reaching up to the third floor. The apartment filled with water up to the ceiling and for three hours she held on to a piece of furniture, trying to stay afloat.
“I know how to swim but when I tried to save my family I couldn’t do anything“, explained. The water receded at some point and they managed to escape, just before the building collapsed, with their mother still inside.
