Libyan authorities deployed personnel to battered regions that bore the brunt of catastrophic flooding caused by a powerful storm's torrential rain.
Communities on the region's Mediterranean coastline were devastated and experienced widespread damage with an unknown number of fatalities, with the port city of Derna being struck particularly hard.
Catastrophic Libyan Floods
Officials in the east declared Derna a disaster zone on Monday after flood waters burst through its two aging dams. This inundated wide swaths of the city and left a muddy, churning river in their wake.
In a statement, a Libyan lawmaker who has family in the city of Derna, Asmahan Belaoun, said that the situation in the region was a tragedy and a catastrophe. On Monday, two regional senior officials said that as many as 2,000 people in the city were feared dead and thousands of others could still be missing.
However, the source for the officials' estimates remains unclear. Belaoun also said during a phone interview from Benghazi that water swept away streets and buildings. As per the Washington Post, she said she did not know if her family survived the catastrophe.
The lawmaker noted that she only knew that her family's buildings were gone, noting that helicopters were needed to save what was left in the city. The country is currently split into two rival governments and was already facing crumbling infrastructure before the weather crisis.
The situation resulted from a years-long civil war that initially broke out after the fall of Moammar Gaddafi. On Monday, Derna's telecommunication networks were down and Belanoun and other officials noted that this made it more difficult to assess the number of deaths and the true extent of the damage caused by the flooding.
Unverified video footage was shared on social media platforms and later aired on Libyan news networks showing what seemed to be an apocalyptic scene of a submerged city. The storm, a tropical-storm-like cyclone known as Daniel, caused at least 150 fatalities in Derna alone.
Estimated Number of Casualties
A nonprofit aid group, the Libyan Red Crescent, whose volunteers had helped evacuate residents in the region, said on Monday that more than 300 people died due to the floods in eastern Libya, according to the New York Times.
They added that 5,000 to 6,000 people were still missing because of floods in Derna, said a spokesman for the Libyan National Army. The flooding was centered in the region under the authority of the head of the divided country's eastern region, Osama Hamad.
A resident from Derna, Ahmed Mohamed, said on Monday that they were asleep during the torrential rain and were woken up only to find water besieging their home. Entire residential areas were destroyed along a river running down the mountains through the city center.
Additionally, multi-story apartment buildings that previously stood well back from the river also partially collapsed into the mud due to the power of the flood waters said Aljazeera.
