A view of the devastation in disaster zones after the floods caused by Storm Daniel ravaged the region in Derna, Libya, on September 12. (Credit: Abdullah M Bonja/Anadolu Agency)
Elham Asaad Buaras
As international aid slowly starts to reach Libya’s devastated port city of Derna, questions are raised over exactly how many people have perished, with some officials estimating fatalities from the city’s two dam collapses could hit 20,000, equivalent to a fifth of the city’s population.
Prior to the storm, residents were prevented from leaving their homes after authorities imposed a precautionary curfew on September 10.
After the collapse of the Derna dam, located at the convergence of two river valleys (Wadi Derna), the released waters rushed seven miles towards the sea, overwhelming the Mansur dam, which was also under stress from rising water levels in its reservoir. Residents reported hearing huge explosions before “apocalyptic” waves poured through the city shortly after 1 a.m. local time on September 11.
Approximately 30 million cubic metres of water were unleashed on multistorey buildings with sleeping families inside, resulting in the second-deadliest dam failure in history after the 1975 Banqiao Dam collapse in China.
Ten thousand people have been declared missing by official aid agencies such as the Libyan Red Crescent, but the ominous higher estimate of 20,000 deaths came from the Bayda Medical Centre.
Corpses still litter the streets, and drinkable water is in short supply. The storm has killed whole families, and, with the remoteness of some villages and the rudimentary nature of municipal government, it will take time for the death toll to be confirmed.
Rescue operations are also complicated by deep political fractures in the country of seven million people that has lacked a strong central government and has been at war on and off since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Throughout the 2010s, the city was a battleground during the Libyan civil war. Since Qaddafi’s overthrow, the city has changed hands four times.
The scale of devastation appeared even worse than officials had initially predicted. The “sea is constantly dumping dozens of bodies”, said Hichem Abu Chkiouat, Minister of Civil Aviation in the administration that runs eastern Libya, adding that reconstruction would cost billions of dollars.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Libya announced on September 13 that at least 30,000 people had been displaced in Derna. The IOM added that 6,085 people were known to have been displaced in other storm-hit areas, including Benghazi, with the number of deaths still unverified.
There was such a need to bury the bodies to avoid the spread of disease that hundreds were being buried in mass graves. Derna residents have been pleading for a new field hospital as the two existing hospitals in the town have become makeshift mortuaries.
Sea patrols were working along the coast trying to locate washed-up bodies, many of which were being taken to Tobruk for potential identification.
There is a shortage of food and drinking water, and authorities are struggling to fully reinstate the internet. A technical committee for assessing the damage, formed by the roads and bridges authority, announced that the extent of the collapsed road network in Derna was estimated at 20 miles. The area devastated by the floods covered 220 acres, and five bridges had been wiped out.
Aid agencies have been battling to reach the city of just more than 100,000 people, hampered by the destruction of roads. Helicopters were provided by Egypt. On September 13, the UK announced an initial aid package of up to £1 million.
According to Libyan media reports, rescuers had yet to reach some parts of the city, especially in the east, as well as the nearby coastal town of Sousse and the municipality of al-Sahel.
Mohamed Eljarh, a local journalist, described the situation in Sousse and surrounding villages as a “new tragic episode”. “Hundreds of homes are buried under mud, debris, and water. No help has arrived,” he said. “Other areas have been similarly affected. The death toll is going to be staggering.”
The bodies of some victims were being transferred to Tobruk, 100 miles east of Derna, to speed up burials and document the many dead. The only functioning mountain road between Tobruk and Derna was clogged with traffic, made up of relief vehicles and desperate relatives who had gone in search of missing loved ones.
The country has been politically divided for years. But the impression remains that the international emergency aid operation has been slow to spring into action, with attention focused on the earthquake in Morocco and experts taking time to realise the scale of the disaster.
The UK-based Lady Fatimah Trust, one of many international organisations assisting, requested that the Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque in Derna be used as a distribution centre for the activities.
A spokesperson for the charity, which is collaborating with local teams, told The Muslim News that it has supported up to 500 families, or 2,500 people. “This will be £25,000 as a first commitment and possibly the same again in four weeks.”
The charity has prioritised aid for “the most vulnerable widowed mothers and orphaned children, the sick, and the elderly.”
The UN-recognised government of national unity based in Tripoli said on September 13 that 12 countries had sent aid and rescue teams to the country. With Libya divided between two rival administrations, aid agencies are hoping for maximum coordination of the haphazard relief effort.
Rashad Hamed, a data specialist consultant at UNICEF, said, “The Derna disaster was caused by gross negligence.”
He said the Wadi Derna dam “retained rainwater, and the neglected spillway for the dam, which had not been cleaned for a long time, failed to drain the water. As a result, the dam collapsed, and the water swept the city and threw it into the sea.”
As recently as 2022, a researcher at the Omar Al-Mukhtar University in Bayda, Libya, warned in a paper that the dams needed urgent attention, pointing out that there was “a high potential for flood risk”.
The paper also called on officials to urgently conduct maintenance on the dams, prophetically stating that “in a huge flood, the results will be catastrophic”.
The Wadi Derna had been known to be prone to flooding, having experienced four major floods between 1942 and 1986. Moin Kikhia, from the Libya Democratic Institute thinktank, said, “The environmental disruption of the storm was turned by endemic corruption and a lack of governance into something of a biblical catastrophe.”
Political infighting in Libya has already started, with those in power seeking to avoid blame. Musa al-Koni, a member of the Libyan presidential council, said: “It had not been expected that this hurricane would be this strong and destructive to this extent, especially since the country had not witnessed such devastating storms before.”
He said, “We dealt with the crisis without plans, and it is clear to the public what happened. We want everything done to the maximum and fastest, and now we do not have time to blame each other, and we must work as much as we can. None of us were exposed to what our people were exposed to in Derna, and it is natural for us to blame our institutions.”
Major General Ahmed al-Mismari, a spokesperson for the Libyan National Army, which dominates in the east, said its units acted within the first hours of the storm’s arrival and fully performed their duty.
He said, “All the bridges in Derna had been vulnerable to these floods, and this created a challenge as all transportation routes were closed to us. We tried to find alternative routes, and every soldier must reach the citizen, whatever the problem or dilemma was facing him.”
He said Libyans were welcoming displaced families, and hotels and schools had opened to provide accommodation as development agencies provided cover, medicines, and humanitarian services amid the continuing search and rescue mission. He said support was arriving by air and sea but added that there were people south of the Green Mountain about whom little had been heard.
