Flooding death toll soars to 11,300 in city along the coast

LIBYA

People look for survivors in Derna, Libya, on Wednesday. Search teams are combing streets, wrecked buildings, and even the sea to look for bodies in Derna, where the collapse of two dams unleashed a massive flash flood that killed thousands of people. YOUSEF MURAD — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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DERNA, Libya >> The death toll in Libya’s coastal city of Derna has soared to 11,300 as search efforts continue following a flood fed by the breaching of two dams in torrential rains, the Libyan Red Crescent said Thursday.

Marie el-Drese, the aid group’s secretary-general, told the Associated Press that another 10,100 people are reported missing in the Mediterranean city. Health authorities previously put the death toll in Derna at 5,500. The storm also killed about 170 people elsewhere in the country.

The flooding swept away entire families in Derna on Sunday night and exposed vulnerabilities in the oil-rich country that has been mired in conflict since a 2011 uprising that toppled long-ruling dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Daniel, an unusually strong Mediterranean storm, caused deadly flooding in communities across eastern Libya, but the worst-hit was Derna. As the storm pounded the coast Sunday night, residents said they heard loud explosions when two dams outside the city collapsed. Floodwaters gushed down Wadi Derna, a valley that cuts through the city, crashing through buildings and washing people out to sea.

A U.N. official said Thursday that most casualties could have been avoided.

“If there would have been a normal operating meteorological service, they could have issued the warnings,” World Meteorological Organization head Petteri Taalas told reporters in Geneva. “The emergency management authorities would have been able to carry out the evacuation.”

The WMO said earlier this week that the National Meteorological Center issued warnings 72 hours before the flooding, notifying all governmental authorities by email and through media.

Officials in eastern Libya warned the public about the coming storm, and on Saturday, they ordered residents to evacuate coastal areas, fearing a surge from the sea. But there was no warning about the dams collapsing.

The two dams that collapsed outside Derna were built in the 1970s. A report by a state-run audit agency in 2021 said the dams had not been maintained despite the allocation of more than 2 million euros for that purpose in 2012 and 2013.

The disaster brought a rare moment of unity, as government agencies across the country rushed to help the affected areas.

While the Tobruk-based government of eastern Libya is leading relief efforts, the Tripoli-based western government allocated the equivalent of $412 million for reconstruction in Derna and other eastern towns, and an armed group in Tripoli sent a convoy with humanitarian aid.

Derna has begun burying its dead, mostly in mass graves, said eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel earlier Thursday.