A bang was heard on Monday 11th at 3.00am as the residents of Derna were sleeping. One dam burst, then a second one, sending a huge wave of water gushing down through the mountains towards the coastal Libyan city, killing thousands, as entire neighourhoods were swept into the sea.
The Storm Daniel medicane was the cause of the burst of the two dams known together as the Wadi Derna Dam – to the south, releasing more than 30 million cubic metres of water, and the resulting floods destroyed buildings, sank vehicles and left bodies strewn in the streets in the city of Derna. This Mediterranean hurricane-like system (the medicane) brought more than 400mm of rain to parts of the north-east coast within a 24-hour period.
Derna, the epicenter of the disaster, had a population of around 100,000 before the tragedy. Yesterday, the Libyan Red Crescent said that approximately 10,000 people were still missing. Confirmed reports on the death toll are at 5,500 people. More than 3,000 bodies were buried by Thursday morning while another 2,000 were still being processed. Most of the dead were buried in mass graves outside Derna, while others were transferred to nearby towns and cities.
It is speculated that untold numbers could be buried under drifts of mud and debris, including overturned cars and chunks of concrete that rise up to 4 metres (13 feet) high. Rescuers have struggled to bring in heavy equipment as the floods washed out or blocked roads leading to the area. Access to Derna remains severely hampered as roads and bridges have been destroyed and power and phone lines cut to wide areas, where at least 30,000 people are now homeless. The government is making efforts to establish a sea corridor for emergency relief and evacuations seeing that most roads collapsed in the flood.
Experts say that apart from the strong storm itself, Libya’s catastrophe was greatly exacerbated by a lethal confluence of factors including aging, crumbling infrastructure, inadequate warnings and the impacts of the accelerating climate crisis; that the dams were also likely to be made from dumped and compacted soil or rocks, which is not as strong as concrete.
The area usually sees about 1.5mm of water throughout the month of September. Therefore, 400mm of water in less than 24 hours is an extraordinary deluge of water. Libya’s National Meteorological Centre says it is a new rainfall record with recordings across the country that the rainfall on ground was higher.