Startling devastation wreaked by Mediterranean storm Daniel amplifies vulnerability of nation torn apart by chaos
The destruction came to Derna and other parts of eastern Libya on Sunday night. As the storm pounded the coast, Derna residents said they heard loud explosions and realized that dams outside the city had collapsed. Flash floods were unleashed down Wadi Derna, a river running from the mountains through the city and into the sea.Videos posted online by residents showed large swaths of mud and wreckage where the raging waters had swept away neighborhoods on both banks of the river.
Many bodies were believed trapped under rubble or had been washed out into the Mediterranean Sea, said eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel.Article content Flooding often happens in Libya during rainy season, but rarely with this much destruction. A key question was how the rains were able to burst through two dams outside Derna — whether because of poor maintenance or sheer volume of rain.
Local authorities have neglected Derna for years. “Even the maintenance aspect was simply absent. Everything kept being delayed,” said Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow specializing in Libya at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies. Hifter’s eastern government based in the city of Benghazi is locked in a bitter rivalry with the western government in the capital of Tripoli. Each is backed by powerful militias and by foreign powers. Hifter is also backed by Egypt, Russia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, while the west Libya administration is backed by Turkey, Qatar and Italy.The Tripoli-based government of western Libya sent a plane with 14 tons of medical supplies and health workers to Benghazi.
“Jill and I send our deepest condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones in the devastating floods in Libya,” he said.
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