‘Bodies everywhere’: Thousands feared dead as Storm Daniel hammers Libya

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‘Bodies everywhere’: Thousands feared dead as Storm Daniel hammers Libya

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Officials say as many as 2,000 people have been killed and thousands more are missing after massive flooding caused by two burst dams.

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Hani Shennib, president of the National Council for US-Libya Relations, said the situation in Derna is dire, there is no internet connection, no electricity and the scale of the disaster does not make only get worse.

Ahmed al-Mosmari, a spokesman for the country's armed forces based in the east, said at a news conference that the death toll in Derna has now surpassed 2,000, and that between 5,000 and 6,000 people are still missing.

The division of Libya into two rival administrations, each backed by militias and foreign governments, will make search-and-rescue operations a challenge.

Tamer Ramadan of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies,, said that the death toll from the flooding in Libya is likely to be much higher than the current estimate of 2,000. The number of missing people could approach 10,000.

The death toll from the flooding in eastern Libya caused by Storm Daniel is feared to be in the thousands. The storm has swept away entire neighborhoods in multiple coastal towns, and the eastern city of Derna has been cut off from the rest of the country after two dams burst.

A minister in the administration that controls eastern Libya said on Tuesday (09/12/2023) that more than 1,000 bodies have been recovered so far from the flooding that wiped out one-quarter of the city of Derna.

Both Libya's eastern-based parliament and the internationally-recognized interim government in Tripoli have declared three days of mourning for the victims of the recent flooding.

The collapse of the dams caused a massive wall of water to surge into the city. Some experts estimate that more than 30 million cubic square meters of water were released into the city.

Videos from eastern Libya show people trapped on top of their cars as the storm swept through the cities of Benghazi, Susa, Bayda, al-Marj, and Derna on Sunday and Monday.

The United Nations in Libya declared they were closely monitoring the storm and prepared to provide immediate relief assistance to support local and national response efforts.

Four major oil terminals in Libya were shut down for three days starting Saturday (09/09/2023) evening. The authorities also declared a state of extreme emergency, closing schools and stores and imposing a curfew.

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09

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11

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2023

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12

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am

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Natural disasters

Eastern Libya floods

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/11/dozens-killed-as-devastating-storm-daniel-sweeps-eastern-libya

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Eastern Libya floods

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The division of Libya into two rival administrations, each backed by militias and foreign governments, will make search-and-rescue operations a challenge.

News

Videos from eastern Libya show people trapped on top of their cars as the storm swept through the cities of Benghazi, Susa, Bayda, al-Marj, and Derna on Sunday and Monday.

News