A Mediterranean storm unleashed torrential downpours and extreme flooding that swept away city blocks in the eastern city of Derna, officials said.
A powerful storm that unleashed torrential rain and extreme flooding across eastern Libya has devastated entire communities on its Mediterranean coastline, causing widespread destruction and an unknown number of fatalities, officials said.Authorities declared the city of Derna a disaster zone after dams burst and floodwaters inundated neighborhoods early Monday, washing away cars and entire city blocks and leaving a muddy, churning river in their wake.
At least 150 people were killed in Derna as a result of the storm, a tropical-like depression named Daniel, an official with the Libyan Red Crescent said to Reuters, adding that the organization expected the death toll to rise. Libya is politically and geographically split between east and west and ruled by two rival governments, including a U.N.-backed administration in Tripoli. In eastern Libya, officials said that thousands were believed dead or missing in Derna.In a choppy phone interview with a local television channel, Osama Hamad, prime minister of the eastern Libyan government, estimated that 2,000 were feared dead but gave no source for the figure.
The interior minister in eastern Libya, Issam Abu Zureibah, also said that at least 1,000 people were killed. “The damages are very serious,” he said in an interview with the Saudi Arabia-based news channel Al-Hadath. “There are areas that were swept away entirely into the sea.”in the southwest of the country, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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