Over 5,000 people were killed in Libya after two dams collapsed following severe rain.
The death toll is expected to rise.
“We still cannot comprehend the magnitude of what has happened,” said a citizen from Derna living in Turkey. “The shock we are experiencing is terrible.”
Anas El Gomati, the director of the Sadeq Institute, a Libyan policy research center, the catastrophe is greatly different than the recent earthquake in Morocco.
Where earthquakes cannot be predicted, dam preparedness and storm forecasts can be considered.
“We say Mother Nature, but this is the act of man — it’s the incompetence of Libya’s political elites,” Mr. El Gomati said. “There’s no words you can find to describe the biblical level of suffering those people have to endure.”
In the city of Derna, it is estimated that at least 5,200 people died.
At least 20,000 people have been displaced across other cities.
Reporting from The New York Times:
President Biden, in a statement on Tuesday, said that the United States was “sending emergency funds to relief organizations and coordinating with the Libyan authorities and the U.N. to provide additional support.” President Emmanuel Macron of France also announced the country would send financial support and other aid for organizations working on the ground. However, it was unclear how much aid had reached the most-affected areas; Benghazi is more than 180 miles from Derna by car, and many of the area’s roads had been cut off by the flooding, the Derna City Council said on Monday. It called for the opening of a maritime passageway to Derna and for urgent international intervention.
