One-sixth of Derna's Population Killed in Libya Floods... "If Only Weather Alerts Had Worked"

11,000 Missing Persons, Number of Victims Expected to Rise

The death toll in the northeastern Libyan port city of Derna has surpassed 11,000 due to massive flooding caused by a tropical storm. With over 10,000 people reported missing, predictions suggest the final death toll could reach up to 20,000, raising growing concerns about secondary damage from waterborne diseases and other issues.

A major flood occurred in Libya, North Africa, and on the 12th (local time), the northeastern port city of Derna was submerged. The eastern regional government of Libya announced that more than 5,300 people died in the northeastern port city of Derna alone on that day. [Image source=Yonhap News]

According to the Associated Press and other sources on the 15th (local time), the Libyan relief organization Red Crescent reported that as of the previous day, 11,300 people had died in Derna, with an additional 10,100 missing.

This figure is a significant increase from the 6,000 deaths previously reported by the eastern Libyan government, and the number is expected to rise further as rescue, search, and body recovery operations continue.

Abdulmenam Al-Ghaithi, mayor of Derna, estimated in an interview with Al Jazeera on the 13th that the death toll could reach between 18,000 and 20,000. Considering Derna’s population is around 125,000, if this estimate materializes, it would mean that one in six residents has lost their life.

Earlier, on the 10th, tropical storm Daniel brought heavy rains that caused two dams upstream to collapse consecutively, sweeping away more than 20% of the city. The eastern government’s Minister of Health announced that the storm also caused around 170 deaths in other parts of eastern Libya, including Bayda, Susa, Um Al-Aranib, and Marj.

According to Al Jazeera and other outlets, the collapse of the two dams unleashed a 7-meter-high wall of water that devastated Derna, revealing the city’s catastrophic damage in full.

Where entire buildings were swept away, only bare steel frames remain, and partially destroyed buildings stand as ruins. Endless bodies have been found throughout the area, and local hospitals lack space to store the deceased, leaving corpses scattered in hallways and on roads outside buildings. On the beach, clothes, shoes, toys, and furniture lie scattered, while dozens of bodies of residents swept out to sea have washed ashore.

Survivors are desperately searching for lost family members, painstakingly identifying bodies left covered roughly with cloth.

The eastern government reported that over 5,000 bodies had been recovered by the previous day, with more than 3,000 buried in mass graves, but the discovery of additional bodies is causing ongoing difficulties. Local health authorities warned that "as bodies decompose, there is a serious risk of secondary damage such as outbreaks of waterborne diseases," urging caution, according to broadcasts.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has requested $71.4 million (approximately 94.9 billion KRW) in emergency aid to support 250,000 Libyans most affected by the disaster, according to reports from dpa and others.

In an urgent appeal, OCHA stated, "Approximately 884,000 people in Libya have been directly affected by this flood, and assistance will be needed over the next three months."

According to the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM), at least 30,000 people have been displaced in Derna alone due to the flooding. The UN previously approved the release of $10 million (approximately 1.32 billion KRW) from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) for flood response.

In the eastern Libyan port city of Derna, residents are walking through devastated streets on the 11th (local time) following a massive flood caused by Storm Daniel. As of the morning of the 13th, 6,000 people have died in Derna alone due to the flood. Tens of bodies are being washed ashore at a time, leading to estimates that the death toll could exceed 10,000. [Image source=Yonhap News]

The International Committee of the Red Cross announced that it provided 6,000 body bags along with medical, food, and other supplies to Libya the previous day. The World Food Programme (WFP) has begun food assistance for over 5,000 displaced households, and the World Health Organization (WHO) approved the local disbursement of $2 million (approximately 260 million KRW) from its emergency fund.

Additionally, individual countries including Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Kuwait, Italy, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Germany, Romania, and Finland have also extended support. The South Korean government has expressed its intention to closely cooperate with the international community to provide aid.

As the scale of the damage expands, criticism has mounted over inadequate weather forecasting systems and poor dam management, which have exacerbated the disaster. Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), stated at a press conference held at the United Nations Office at Geneva on the 14th, "If the meteorological authorities capable of issuing national-level warnings had functioned properly, most of the fatalities caused by the flood could have been prevented."

He added, "We previously attempted to assist Libyan authorities in improving their weather forecasting systems, but this was not realized," citing the unstable national security situation as a factor.

Since the 2011 Arab Spring revolution that toppled the Muammar Gaddafi regime, Libya has been in a state of anarchy with the eastern Libyan National Army (LNA) and the western Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) in conflict. The two collapsed dams were built over 50 years ago and reportedly have not undergone maintenance since 2002.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.