In a small auditorium at the hospital in the city of Derna, the bodies of Libyans killed in the floods of Storm Daniel earlier this week were laid to rest. Dead children, women and men, wrapped in black bags, await identification by a family member just before being sent to mass graves.
Since the storm hit the war-torn country, authorities have been almost helpless. On social media, Benghazi residents are raising donations and clothes for people left destitute. In recent days, trucks have arrived in the city of Tobruk collecting the bodies of the victims who have not yet been identified.
Libyan floods: satellite images reveal massive destruction // Photo: Reuters
Libyan officials said the death toll from the floods had exceeded 11,300. A senior Eastern government official expressed concern that with thousands of missing people, the death toll could jump dramatically — and double. The mayor of Derna, Abdel Menem al-Riti, estimated that the number could reach 20,<> people.
In Libya, tempers are raging due to the neglect of the infrastructure of the dams around the city of Derna, which collapsed and intensified the scale of the catastrophe. In recent years, the governmental split has made it difficult to manage infrastructure and preserve natural resources, and has become fertile ground for corruption scandals.
For example, Libyan journalist Mohammed al-Jarrah revealed that already in 2021, the Western government's Ministry of Water Resources requested a specific budget to preserve and rehabilitate dams around Derna. The cost: more than 2 million euros. Although the budget was transferred to a Turkish company, the project was not actually implemented – and the dams were neglected.
The collapse of the dams sealed Derna's fate. The city centre is crossed by Wadi Derna, a seasonal river that flows out of the hills and eventually empties into the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the year it is dry, but during the storm two large dams collapsed. The first dam is about 13km out of town, and the lower dam is just a few hundred metres away. After the upper dam was breached, the lower dam had no chance against the intensity of the flood.
How dramatic the dam collapse was, a resident of the city of Hajifa al-Hasadi testified: "At 2:30 a.m., the dams collapsed," he told the American network Hura. "The river was overflowing. Water flooded the city, electricity was cut off and all communications were cut off. We never imagined that we would wake up and the city would disappear completely."
Failure to maintain the dams was not the only failure. "If Libya had a functioning forecasting service, it could issue warnings," World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petri Thales said.
He said the international organization had tried to help Libyans develop their service, but had encountered security threats.
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