{"id":4117,"date":"2023-09-14T20:16:05","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T20:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/libya-hunts-for-those-to-blame-for-thousands-of-flood-deaths\/"},"modified":"2023-09-14T20:16:05","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T20:16:05","slug":"libya-hunts-for-those-to-blame-for-thousands-of-flood-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/libya-hunts-for-those-to-blame-for-thousands-of-flood-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Libya hunts for those to blame for thousands of flood deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

Libyan authorities demanded an investigation on Thursday into whether human failings were to blame for thousands of deaths in the worst natural disaster<\/a> in the country\u2019s modern history, as survivors searched for loved ones washed away by floods.<\/p>\n

A torrent unleashed by a powerful storm burst dams on Sunday night and hurtled down a seasonal riverbed that bisects the eastern city of Derna, washing multi-storey buildings into the sea with sleeping families inside.<\/p>\n

Confirmed death tolls given by officials have varied. All are in the thousands, with thousands more on lists of the missing. Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi said deaths in the city could already reach 18,000-20,000, based on the extent of the damage.<\/p>\n

He told Reuters<\/em> that he was afraid the city would now be infected with an epidemic, \u201cdue to the large number of bodies under the rubble and in the water\u201d.<\/p>\n

The World Meteorological Organisation said the huge loss of life could have been avoided if Libya \u2014 a failed state for more than a decade \u2014 had a functioning weather agency in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there would have been a normally operating meteorological service, they could have issued warnings,\u201d WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalashe said in Geneva.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe emergency management authorities would have been able to carry out evacuation of the people. And we could have avoided most of the human casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other commentators drew attention to warnings given in advance, including an academic paper published last year by a hydrologist outlining the city\u2019s vulnerability to floods and the urgent need to maintain the dams that protected it.<\/p>\n

Mohamed al-Menfi, head of the three-member council that acts as the presidency in Libya\u2019s internationally recognised government, said on X that the council had asked the attorney general to investigate the disaster.<\/p>\n

Those whose actions or failure to act were responsible for the failure of the dam should be held accountable, along with anyone who held up aid, he said.
\nUsama Al Husadi, a 52-year-old driver, had been searching for his wife and five children since the disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went by foot searching for them \u2026 I went to all hospitals and schools but no luck,\u201d he told Reuters<\/em>, weeping with his head in his hands.<\/p>\n

Husadi, who had been working the night of the storm, dialled his wife\u2019s phone number once again. It was switched off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost at least 50 members from my father\u2019s family, between missing and dead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wali Eddin Mohamed Adam, 24, a Sudanese brick factory worker living on Derna\u2019s outskirts, had awakened to the boom of the water on the night of the storm and rushed to the city centre to find it was gone. Nine of his fellow workers were lost, and around 15 others had lost their families, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll were swept away by the valley into the sea,\u201d he said. \u201cMay God have mercy upon them and grant them heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

International aid<\/h2>\n

Rescue teams arrived from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Qatar. Among countries sending aid, Turkey sent a ship carrying equipment to set up two field hospitals.<\/p>\n

Italy sent three planes of supplies and personnel, as well as two navy ships that had difficulty offloading because Derna\u2019s debris-choked port was almost unusable.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it would release $2 million from its emergency fund to support the victims, calling the floods a \u201ccalamity of epic proportions\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added it would send trauma, surgical and emergency supplies from its logistics hub in Dubai.<\/p>\n

Rescue work is hindered by the political fractures in a country of 7 million people, at war on and off and with no government holding nationwide reach since a NATO-backed uprising toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.<\/p>\n

An internationally recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) is based in Tripoli, in the west. A parallel administration operates in the east, under the control of the Libyan National Army of Khalifa Haftar, who failed to capture Tripoli in a bloody 14-month siege that unravelled in 2020.<\/p>\n

Derna has been particularly chaotic, run by a succession of armed Islamist groups, including at one point Islamic State, before being uneasily brought under Haftar\u2019s control.<\/p>\n

A delegation of GNU ministers were expected in Benghazi in the east on Thursday to show solidarity and discuss relief efforts, a rare occurrence since the eastern-based parliament rejected their administration last year.<\/p>\n

Viewed from high points above Derna, the once densely populated city centre was now a wide, flat crescent of earth with stretches of mud. Nothing but rubble and a washed-out road were left on Thursday at the site of the dam that had once protected the city. The desert riverbed, or wadi, had already subsided back to a trickle.<\/p>\n

Below, the beach was littered with clothes, toys, furniture, shoes and other possessions swept out of homes by the torrent. Streets were covered in deep mud and strewn with uprooted trees and hundreds of wrecked cars, many flipped on their sides or roofs. One car was wedged on a gutted building\u2019s second-floor balcony.<\/p>\n

\u201cI survived with my wife but I lost my sister,\u201d said Mohamed Mohsen Bujmila, a 41-year-old engineer. \u201cMy sister lives downtown where most of the destruction happened. We found the bodies of her husband and son and buried them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also found the bodies of two strangers in his apartment.<\/p>\n

As he spoke an Egyptian search-and-rescue team nearby recovered the body of his neighbour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Aunt Khadija, may God grant her heaven,\u201d Bujmila said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Libyan authorities demanded an investigation on Thursday into whether human failings were to blame for thousands of deaths in the worst natural disaster in the country\u2019s modern history, as survivors searched for loved ones washed away by floods. A torrent unleashed by a powerful storm burst dams on Sunday night and hurtled down a seasonal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/09\/14225638a00b03d.jpg?r=225858","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}