Libyans were hit by a nighttime tidal wave: ‘Suddenly we heard a loud bang’

taketonews

Wherever the survivors of the flood disaster in the Libyan coastal town of Derna look, they find bodies everywhere of fellow citizens who died. In the mud-stained streets, along the river that has overflowed its banks, but also on the beach and even at sea. Fishermen bring up one washed-away corpse after another near Derna.

Some survivors – often completely traumatized – have fled to the nearest major city, Benghazi. Soufine Hassadi (34), who actually lives in Tripoli but comes from Derna, was also waiting there for his younger brother Abderahmen on Wednesday. The latter had lost his mother, wife and daughter in Derna. The 27-year-old Abderahmen still cries and screams constantly, Hassadi said.

Over the phone, Hassadi tells the story he heard from his brother: “It was around three o’clock at night. The whole family was sleeping. Suddenly we heard a loud bang against the front door. It was the water that slammed open the door with an incredible force and poured in. Within ten minutes there was at least a meter. Stones and all kinds of rubbish also flowed in. Soon my mother was hit by something and lost consciousness. I wanted to do something but I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t see anyone anymore.”

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Six families lived in the street, of which only one survived the storm without casualties. It is also now in Benghazi. “The entire street, including all the houses, has been destroyed. There is nothing left of it,” says Hassadi. “It’s indescribable. I can’t even call it a ‘disaster’. Everything has been destroyed. Dead bodies everywhere. Rubble. This is more than we can handle locally. We don’t have the right people or the resources for it.”

Everything has been destroyed. Dead bodies and rubble everywhere

Soufine Hassadi resident Derna

The fact that so many deaths occurred during the night from Sunday to Monday is mainly because a gigantic mass of water, comparable to a tsunami, pushed through the city after two dams failed. The tidal wave would have been about seven meters high. This happened after exceptionally heavy rainfall in the region, which was accompanied by Hurricane Daniel. The two dams, constructed in the 1970s by Yugoslav engineers, were also believed to be in poor condition after years of poor maintenance.

A car wreck is located on Wednesday the Libyan coastal town of Derna after the flooding caused by Storm Daniel.
Photo Esam Omran Al-Fetori / Reuters

There is still a lot of uncertainty about the death toll. “We have already counted 5,300 deaths so far and the number is likely to rise significantly,” said Hichem Abu Chkiouat, an official from the government that controls eastern Libya told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday. Health Minister Othman Abduljaleel from the same government previously reported that more than two thousand dead bodies had been recovered. According to an official of the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, almost seven thousand deaths have now been counted. In addition, there are also many thousands of missing people.

Also view this photo series: Enormous devastation and thousands missing after flooding on the Libyan coast

The Libyan exile Ghaith Shennib told the French daily Le Figaro that he heard from relatives in Derna how they initially tried to stop the water in their building on the ground floor by simply closing the doors. Ultimately, they had to flee to the fourth floor before they were safe. “On the fourth floor they saw that the neighbor’s two-story building had completely disappeared,” said Shennib.

Swept away

A second reason is that the disaster occurred in the middle of the night took place from Sunday to Monday. “No one was prepared for it,” residents say in videos. “We were sleeping when the disaster struck us. It happened very quickly, there was no time to do anything.”

Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation in the government of General Khalifa Haftar, which rules eastern Libya, says large parts of the city have been completely destroyed. An estimated thirty thousand people have been left homeless by the disaster.

Derna does not have sufficient capacity to store all the bodies of the dead in mortuaries. Neighboring places therefore help. About three hundred remains were taken to Tobruk, 170 kilometers away. These victims included 84 Egyptians, seventy of whom were from the same village in Egypt. Many Egyptians stay in Libya because there is more work there.

Also read: ‘Libya’s eastern coastline almost no longer exists’

On the fourth floor they saw that the neighbor’s two-story building had completely disappeared

Ghaith Shennib Libyan exile

The relief efforts are difficult because many roads are heavily damaged or washed away. Neighboring countries Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria, as well as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, have sent rescue teams. The US also wants to provide help. But it is not easy to reach Derna.

The unstable political situation in Libya makes aid delivery difficult. Libya has had two rival governments since 2014. The Government of National Unity in Tripoli, recognized by the UN and most countries, largely controls western Libya, while General Haftar’s government controls the east. There is hardly any cooperation between the two governments, which care little about the well-being of their citizens. They do share the country’s oil revenues.

Destruction in the Libyan city of Derna on Wednesday, after heavy flooding caused by Storm Daniel.
Photo Esam Omran Al-Fetori / Reuters

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