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The document summarizes the devastating floods that occurred in the eastern Libyan city of Derna after the failure of two dams caused a torrent of water to rush through the city. Survivors describe entire neighborhoods being swept away and estimate that thousands of people have been killed. The floods divided the city in half and survivors had to climb to rooftops to escape the rising water, witnessing buildings collapsing and bodies floating past. The death toll is estimated to be in the thousands but could be as high as 20,000 people.

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Nikola
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33 views

Libuy

The document summarizes the devastating floods that occurred in the eastern Libyan city of Derna after the failure of two dams caused a torrent of water to rush through the city. Survivors describe entire neighborhoods being swept away and estimate that thousands of people have been killed. The floods divided the city in half and survivors had to climb to rooftops to escape the rising water, witnessing buildings collapsing and bodies floating past. The death toll is estimated to be in the thousands but could be as high as 20,000 people.

Uploaded by

Nikola
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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'An unimaginable scene': Survivors

describe Libya floods


• Published

12 hours ago

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• Libya floods

IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS
Image caption,
The failure of two dams sent a torrent of water through Derna, washing entire streets
into the sea
By Joel Gunter
BBC News
The first sign that something was wrong was the sound of the dogs barking.
It was 2.30am and dark outside. When Husam Abdelgawi, a 31-year-old accountant
in the eastern Libyan city of Derna, got up and went sleepily downstairs to check on
them, he felt water under his feet.
Husam opened the front door of the house he shared with his younger brother,
Ibrahim. More water flooded in, pulling the door off of its hinges.
The brothers ran to the back door, where they were met by a "ghastly, unimaginable
scene, worse than death itself to witness", Husam said, in a phone interview from the
city of Al-Qubbah.
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"The bodies of women and children were floating past us. Cars and entire houses
were caught up in the current. Some of the bodies were swept by the water into our
house."
The water swept Husam and Ibrahim up too, carrying them farther and faster than
they imagined possible. Within seconds, they were 150m apart.
Ibrahim, 28, managed to grab on to floating power cables still tethered to their poles
and grapple himself back towards where Husam was stuck. The brothers used the
cables like ropes to pull themselves towards a nearby building and through a third-
floor window, and from there they made it to a fifth-floor rooftop where they could wait
out the flood.
"The area where we were was a higher part of the city," Husam said. "In the lower
parts, I don't think anyone on the fifth or sixth floors has survived. I think they are all
dead. May God have mercy on their souls."

IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS
Image caption,
People look at missing notices in the aftermath of the floods in Derna
Estimates of the number of dead vary. Libya's ambassador to the UN says about
6,000 people are confirmed to have died with thousands more missing. A Red
Crescent official in Libya said about 10,000 people were believed killed. Derna's
mayor has warned that 20,000 people may have lost their lives.
The flood was triggered by the failure of two dams outside Derna, unleashing a
torrent of water through the city's centre.
"Derna was divided in two halves by the water and everything in between is gone,"
said Rahma Ben Khayal, an 18-year-old student who made it to safety on a rooftop in
the city. "The people in between are all dead," she said.
The torrent that washed away entire streets had begun a day earlier, as light rain.
It was not frightening at first, said Amna Al Ameen Absais, a 23-year-old medical
student born and raised in Derna, who is guardian to her three younger siblings
following the death of both parents from illness.
As the raindrops drummed outside, the four siblings sat in their first floor apartment in
the Beach Towers, a seven-story building next to the waterfront, playing games and
scrolling on their phones. They dressed her younger brother in a life vest and
laughed.

Image caption,
Amna managed to escape with her three younger siblings
But as Sunday night wore on, the rain got heavier. Sirens sounded. The siblings
couldn't sleep.
"It really began about 2.30am," Amna said, in a phone interview from the nearby city
of Tobruk. "The noise was getting much louder. My brother said he could see water
covering the street."
As the water rose, the neighbours began to migrate upstairs. Amna grabbed the cat
and four passports and they went up from their first floor apartment to a third floor
apartment. "People were looking outside into the dark, praying," she said. Then the
water reached the third floor. "Everyone started screaming. We moved up again, to
the fifth floor and finally up to the seventh floor."
Panic had set in. "I lost the cat," Amna said. "I lost my little brother for a minute but
then I found him. I realised we could not even stay on the seventh floor, we had to go
to the rooftop."
From there, they could see neighbours on the roof of a three-storey building
opposite, including a family with whom they were friends. The neighbours were
waving their phone torches. Moments later, their entire building collapsed into the
water in the dark.
"It felt like an earthquake," Amna said. "That family still hasn't been found. Their son
is looking for them. We told him that we saw their building collapse in front of our
eyes."

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