Libya flood survivors pick through ruins in search of loved ones among thousands missing
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Rescue workers carry a body amid rescue operations in the aftermath of the floods in Derna, Libya.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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DERNA, Libya - Survivors of a flood that swept away the centre of a Libyan city picked through the ruins on Thursday in search of loved ones from among thousands of dead and missing, while the authorities feared an outbreak of disease from rotting bodies.
A torrent unleashed by a powerful storm burst dams
It washed multi-storey buildings into the sea with sleeping families inside.
Thousands of people are confirmed dead and thousands more missing, with the mayor saying the toll could reach 20,000.
Mr Usama Al Husadi, a 52-year-old driver, has been looking for his wife and five children since the disaster.
“I went on foot searching for them... I went to all hospitals and schools, but had no luck,” he told Reuters, weeping with his head in his hands.
Mr Husadi, who was working on the night of the storm, dialled his wife’s phone number once again. It was switched off.
“We lost at least 50 members from my father’s family, between missing and dead,” he said.
Brick factory worker Wali Eddin Mohamed Adam, 24, who lives on the outskirts, woke to the boom of water on the night of the storm and rushed to the city centre to find it was gone.
He has lost at least 10 family members and nine friends. “All were swept away into the sea,” he said. “May God have mercy upon them and grant them heaven.”
Confirmed death tolls given by officials so far have varied, but all are in the thousands, with thousands more on lists of the missing.
Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi told the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television channel that the number of deaths in the city could rise to 18,000 to 20,000, based on the extent of the damage.
“We need teams specialised in recovering bodies,” he told Reuters in Derna. “I fear that the city will be infected with an epidemic due to the large number of bodies under the rubble and in the water.”
Rescue teams
Rescue teams have arrived from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Qatar, said Mr al-Ghaithi. Turkey is sending a ship carrying equipment to set up two field hospitals.
The beach was littered with clothes, toys, furniture, shoes and other possessions swept out of homes by the torrent.
Streets were covered in mud and strewn with uprooted trees and hundreds of wrecked cars, many flipped on their sides or their roofs. One car was wedged on the second-floor balcony of a gutted building.
Mr Mohamed Mohsen Bujmila, a 41-year-old engineer, said: “I survived with my wife, but I lost my sister. (She) lived downtown, where most of the destruction happened. We found the bodies of her husband and son and buried them.”
He also found the bodies of two strangers in his apartment.
As he spoke, an Egyptian search-and-rescue team nearby recovered the body of his neighbour.
“This is Aunt Khadija, may God grant her heaven,” Mr Bujmila said.
The devastation is clear from high points above Derna, where the densely populated city centre is now a wide, flat crescent of earth with stretches of muddy water gleaming in the sun.
Rescue operations are complicated by political fractures in the country of seven million people.
Libya has been at war on and off, with no strong central government since a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation-backed uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
An internationally recognised Government of National Unity is based in Tripoli, in the western part of the country, while a parallel administration operates in the east, including Derna. REUTERS
