Derna Floods: At least 20,000 Presumed Dead, Bodies Scattered In City Lead To Scare Of An Endemic

There are likely 20,000 dead, bodies around the city of Derna in Libya has become concerning as it may cause an endemic.

Turkiye's disaster management team join search and rescue operations in Libya.

Source : Getty

Rescue work is slowly starting to gain some pace following the devastating flood that hit northern Libya’s Derna due to Storm Daniel. Currently, there are about 20,000 presumably dead in the coastal city which has become a topic of great discussion. The scattered bodies have created an endemic scare. Now rescue workers are requesting for more body bags to keep diseases from spreading. The scale of devastation has turned out to be much worse than what the authorities had initially predicted. 

Swathes of the Mediterranean city were obliterated by a torrent of water unleashed by a powerful storm that swept down a usually dry riverbed on Sunday night, bursting dams above the city. Multistorey buildings collapsed with sleeping families inside.

Hichem Abu Chkiouat, the minister of civil aviation in the administration that runs eastern Libya, said that the “sea is constantly dumping bodies”. The death toll will take some time to be officially confirmed due to the rudimentary nature of the municipal government and some of the villages are very remote. An aid worker told Associated Press that whole families have been lost and that bodies can be found everywhere, inside houses, in the streets, at sea. 

“Wherever you go, you find dead men, women, and children,” Emad al-Falah told AP. A sea patrol is working along the coast to locate washed-up bodies. The bodies of some victims were being transferred to Tobruk, 100 miles east of Derna, in an attempt to speed up burials and to document the many dead.

Scare Of Endemic In Derna 

Meanwhile, the mayor of Derna, Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi, said there was need for a specialised team to recover bodies. 

Due to the scare of diseases, there was a need to bury bodies that were recovered, into one grave. “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.” Lutfi al-Misrati, a search team director, told Al Jazeera: “We need bags for the bodies.”

Derna residents have been requesting for a new field hospital because the two that are currently there have turned into makeshift morgues. 

 

Relief Aid From Other Countries To Libya

Relief aid is arriving from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, where three days of mourning were declared. Aside from this international aid is coming in from Tunisia, Turkiye and Qatar. Turkiye is sending a ship with equipment to set up two field hospitals and 148 medical staff. Meanwhile, the UK announced an initial aid package of up to £1 million. France was sending a field hospital and about 50 military and civilian personnel able to treat about 500 people a day, Paris said on Tuesday.

 

The UN-recognised government of national unity based in Tripoli said on Wednesday that 12 countries had sent aid and rescue teams to Libya. The aid included rescue and recovery teams, tracker dogs, field hospitals, medical crews, thermal sensing devices, diving and water suction teams, food supplies, shelter materials, and ships and planes to help in the recovery process.

Due to the destruction of roads in Derna, aid workers are struggling to reach the city, helicopters were required, mainly provided by Egypt.

Possible Reasons Of Derna Devastation

Questions are being raised about how Derna was so exposed to the damage caused by Storm Daniel. Moin Kikhia, from the Libya Democratic Institute thinktank stated, “The environmental disruption of the storm was turned by endemic corruption and lack of governance into something of a biblical catastrophe. At times the water reached 20 metres high so people on the third floor were washed away to sea. Audit documents show these dams were not maintained for years. One can only hope that this leads to reflection in Libya and abroad about the need to elect a new single government.”

Rashad Hamed, a data specialist consultant at the UN children’s fund, Unicef, said that in Derna disaster is different from the humanitarian catastrophe in Marrakech as it could not have been avoided unlike the flood which could have been avoided as it was caused by “ negligence and gross negligence, the price of which was paid by thousands of victims”.