2023-09-11 19:37:00
(CNN) — More than 2,000 people are feared dead in Libya amid severe flooding, according to a leader in the country, as Storm Daniel devastated the east of the nation.
The head of eastern Libya’s parliament-backed government, Osama Hamad, announced the death toll on Monday, according to a report by the state-run Libyan News Agency.
“Osama Hamad told reporters that residential neighborhoods disappeared following torrents swept them and thousands of residents into the sea, and the situation is catastrophic and unprecedented in Libya,” LANA reported.
CNN might not independently verify the death toll and Hamad did not provide a source for the toll of dead and missing.
Images that have been shared on social media show submerged cars, collapsed buildings and torrents of water running through the streets.
Hamad asked medical personnel to head to the severely affected eastern city of Derna to provide immediate assistance.
Telephone lines were cut in Derna and photographs shared by the Red Crescent showed streets severely flooded.
The Red Crescent in Benghazi said Monday it estimated between 150 and 250 people had died in the city of Derna, according to Archyde.com.
Additionally, hospitals in the eastern city of Bayda were evacuated following severe flooding caused by rain amid a severe storm, videos shared by Bayda Medical Center on Facebook show.
This rain is the result of the remains of a very strong low pressure system, which the national meteorological service for Southeast Europe officially named Storm Daniel.
The storm caused catastrophic flooding in Greece last week before moving towards the Mediterranean and becoming a tropical cyclone known as ‘medicane’. These systems can bring dangerous conditions to the Mediterranean Sea and coastal countries, similar to tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic or typhoons in the Pacific.
The remnants of the storm are affecting northern Libya and will slowly head east towards northern Egypt. Rainfall over the next two days might reach 50 mm: in this region the average is less than 10 mm throughout September.
“The United Nations in Libya is closely monitoring the emergency caused by severe weather conditions in the eastern region of the country,” the United Nations Support Mission in Libya said in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter).
1694472861
#feared #dead #effects #Storm #Daniel
