By Premium Times
At least 2,000 people have died and 10,000 are believed missing after Storm Daniel dumped huge quantities of rain on Libya’s north-east.
The storm collapsed two dams, sending water flowing into already inundated areas, CNN reports.
Tamer Ramadan, head of the Red Cross delegation in Libya, gave the numbers of missing people on Tuesday. “The death toll is huge,” she said.
Of those who were killed, at least 145 were Egyptian, according to officials in the northeastern city of Tobruk in Libya
In the eastern city of Derna, which has seen the worst of the devastation, as many as 6,000 people are missing.
Whole neighbourhoods are believed to have been washed away in the city, according to authorities.
Hospitals in Derna are no longer operable and the morgues are full, said Osama Aly, an Emergency and Ambulance Service spokesperson.
Dead bodies have been left outside the morgues on the sidewalks, he told CNN.
“There are no first-hand emergency services. People are working at the moment to collect the rotting bodies,” said Anas Barghathy, a doctor currently volunteering in Derna.
Relatives of people who lived in the destroyed city of Derna told CNN they were terrified after seeing videos of the flooding, with no word from their family members.
The rain, which has swept across several cities in Libya’s north-east, is the result of a very strong low-pressure system that brought catastrophic flooding to Greece last week and moved into the Mediterranean before developing into a tropical-like cyclone known as a medicane.
The deadly storm comes in an unprecedented year of climate disasters and record-breaking weather extremes, from devastating wildfires to oppressive heat.
The collapse of two dams under the pressure of flooding, which sent water rushing towards Derna, has caused catastrophic damage.
Homes in valleys were washed away by strong muddy currents carrying vehicles and debris, and phone lines in the city are down, complicating rescue efforts.
Libya’s storm follows deadly flooding in many other parts of the globe including southern Europe and Hong Kong.
Its vulnerability to extreme weather is increased by its long-running political conflict, which has seen a decade-long power struggle between two rival administrations.
Pictured above: Cities and towns are under water following the medicane
Photo Credit: The Press Office of Libyan Prime Minister/AFP
