No less than one hundred and fifty people have reportedly died in a catastrophic storm as a result of torrential rainfall from Sunday through Monday in Libya.
Reports revealed that the Mediterranean storm swept through eastern Libya during the weekend, destroying buildings and sweeping people away.
Images seen online, as filmed by residents of the country, showed massive mudslides, collapsed buildings and entire neighbourhoods submerged under water.
While expressing regret over the incident, a spokesman for the Benghazi-based administration in Libya, Mohamed Massoud, said during an interview today that massive materials owned by both private and public entities were damaged in the tragic incident.
“At least 150 people were killed as a result of flooding and torrential rains left by storm Daniel in Derna, the Jabal al-Akhdar region and the suburbs of Al-Marj.
“This is besides the massive material damage that struck public and private properties,” Massoud noted.
He said the prime minister of the east-based government, Oussama Hamad, and the head of a rescue committee as well as other ministers, had travelled to Derna to evaluate the extent of the damage.
Reacting, Hamad’s government which rivals a UN-brokered, internationally recognised transitional administration in Tripoli, declared Derna a “disaster area”.
The storm struck eastern Libya on Sunday afternoon, affecting the coastal towns of Jabal al-Akhdar and Benghazi, where a curfew was declared and schools closed for several days.
Rescue teams were also deployed in Derna, 900 kilometres (560 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.
With a population of 100,000, the city lies in the wadi of a river bearing the same name.
According to Massoud, the East Libyan authorities had lost contact with nine soldiers during rescue operations in the city.
In a reaction on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, the United Nations mission in Libya said that it was “closely following the emergency caused by severe weather conditions in the eastern region of the country.”
The UN expressed its condolences to the victims of the floods and said it was “ready to support efforts by local authorities and municipalities to respond to this emergency and provide urgent humanitarian assistance.”
Reports had it that hundreds of residents may still be trapped in difficult-to-reach areas as rescuers, backed by the army, continue with the rescue mission.
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