A Human Tragedy in Libya Brought about by Intense Flooding and Political Chaos; Death toll Could Reach 20,000

Emergency workers uncovered more than 1,500 bodies in the wreckage of Libya’s eastern city of Derna on Tuesday, while it was feared the toll could spiral with 10,000 people reported still missing after flooding brought down dams and wiped out entire neighborhoods. The startling death and devastation wreaked by Mediterranean Storm Daniel pointed to its intensity, but also to the vulnerability of a nation torn apart by political chaos for more than a decade.

There were many issues with the way the eastern Libya administration has managed the crisis. The loss of life was also a consequence of the limited nature of Libya’s forecasting ability, warning and evacuation systems, said Kevin Collins, senior lecturer at the Open University. Weaknesses in the planning and design standards for infrastructure and cities were also exposed, he added.

Spokesperson of the interior ministry Lieutenant Tarek al-Kharraz on Wednesday told the AFP news agency that 3,840 deaths had been recorded in the Mediterranean city so far, including 3,190 who have already been buried. Among them were at least 400 foreigners, mostly from Sudan and Egypt.

Meanwhile, Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation in the administration that runs eastern Libya, told the Reuters news agency more than 5,300 dead had been counted so far, and said the number was likely to increase significantly and might even double. Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television the estimated number of deaths in the city could reach between 18,000 to 20,000 based on the number of districts destroyed by the flood.

Medicane

The high toll of victims was partly blamed on the unprecedented intensity of the storm “Daniel”, which formed around September 4, bringing death and destruction to Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey last week. Such Mediterranean storms which bear the features of tropical cyclones and hurricanes, known as “medicanes”, only occur one to three times a year.

Libya’s National Meteorological Centre said Tuesday it issued early warnings for Storm Daniel, an “extreme weather event,” 72 hours before its occurrence, and notified all governmental authorities by e-mails and through media … “urging them to take preventive measures.” It said that Bayda recorded a record 414.1 millimetres of rain from Sunday to Monday. There were, however, no evacuation plans set in motion. Local authorities have even reportedly told inhabitants, even in vulnerable locations near riverbeds, to stay in their homes.

Storm Daniel “is illustrative of the type of devastating flooding event we may expect increasingly in the future” as the world heats up, said Lizzie Kendon, a climate science professor at the University of Bristol. Outside help was only just starting to reach Derna on Tuesday, more than 36 hours after the disaster struck. The floods damaged or destroyed many access roads to the coastal city of some 125,000.

The local al-Masar television said the eastern administration’s interior minister had said more than 5,000 people died. Other eastern cities, including Libya’s second biggest, Benghazi, were also hit by the storm. Tamer Ramadan, head of a delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said, “We can confirm from our independent sources of information that the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 so far,” he told reporters via video link.

As the storm pounded the coast, Derna residents said they heard loud explosions and realised that old and decaying 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.

Key question

Many bodies were believed trapped under rubble or had been washed out into the Mediterranean Sea, said eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel. “We were stunned by the amount of destruction … the tragedy is very significant, and beyond the capacity of Derna and the government,” Abduljaleel told The Associated Press on the phone from Derna.

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. Some reports said the old dams were not built in concrete and could not withstand a water overload. “The infrastructure could probably not cope, leading to the collapse of the dam,” said Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist and meteorologist at Leipzig University.

Local authorities have neglected Derna for years. “Even the maintenance aspect was simply absent. Everything kept being delayed,” said Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow specialising in Libya at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. Factionalism also comes into play. Derna was for several years controlled by Islamic extremists. Military commander Khalifa Haftar, the Libyan National Army (LNA) chief, captured the city in 2019 only after months of tough urban fighting. The eastern government has been suspicious of the city ever since and has sought to sideline its residents from any decision-making, said Harchaoui. “This mistrust might prove calamitous during the upcoming post-disaster period,” he said.

The political conditions in Libya “pose challenges for developing risk communication and hazard assessment strategies, coordinating rescue operations, and also potentially for maintenance of critical infrastructure such as dams”, Leslie Mabon, a lecturer in environmental systems at the UK-based Open University, said.