"We will never forget that day in Derna," she said, while trying hard to remember how her father managed to save her along with her mother and five siblings.
In her hospital bed, she recounted the horrors of the disaster that killed thousands of people. "The number is huge," she said. "There were corpses on the ground. The cars were piled on top of the bodies."
Torrential rains from Storm Daniel on September 10 burst two dams upstream from Derna, sending a wall of water crashing through the city centre that razed entire neighbourhoods.
It was the latest catastrophe to strike the oil-rich North African country that has been wracked by war and lawlessness since a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 ousted and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
Lying in her hospital bed at a medical centre in Libya's second city of Benghazi, Ibrar gazed at a comic book, trying hard to take her mind off her memories.
"It was the first time in my life I had seen anything this big," the teenager said. "Even during the war, it wasn't like this.
"I'm emotionally drained. My city totally disappeared. Maybe the city will be rebuilt but the people will never come back."
- 'Pressure inside them' -
Libyan health officials have said trauma counselling should be a priority for survivors of the Derna flood.
"It's not only kids who are traumatised; the adults should see specialists too," the health minister of the eastern administration, Othman Abdeljalil told a news conference.
Fadwa Elfartas, medical officer at the Benghazi medical centre, said that, for many, "the psychological trauma is bigger than the physical trauma.
"Even the people who are not from Derna were in shock," she said.
She said nine days on from the tragedy, people are finally taking up the centre's offer of psychological support.
"At first, some people could not or would not talk, as if it was a nightmare that was already behind them," she said.
The centre has a team of 28 mental health staff -- 26 women and two men -- to help patients come to terms with the psychological trauma.
"Once you introduce yourself as a mental health social worker, they speak," said Fatma Baayo, who has been working at the centre for the past 11 years.
"They need somebody to listen to them to relieve the pressure inside them," she said.
"They tell their stories, they all have a different story. Some say 'we heard an explosion', 'we ran', 'we found water', 'we saved our children'... Everyone has a story to tell."
- 'So many are hurting' -
Salma al-Zawi, 40, who works with women and children at the centre, said she was doing her best to put on a strong face.
"If I show weakness in front of a patient, she will collapse. I need to be strong to help her get out of this crisis," she said.
"We help them in every way we can -- we raise their morale, we decrease their pain, we help them talk so that they cry and let out the pressure."
After a demanding day listening to the bereaved, she says she is happy to get home and see her six children are safe and sound.
"When I get back and see my own kids are home and safe, I am grateful, because so many people in my country are hurting."
Climate change, conflict made Libya deluge more likely: study
Paris (AFP) Sept 19, 2023 -
Climate change made torrential rains that triggered deadly flooding in Libya up to 50 times more likely, new research said Tuesday, noting that conflict and poor dam maintenance turned extreme weather into a humanitarian disaster.
An enormous wave of water struck the city of Derna after heavy rains on September 10 overwhelmed two dams, washing whole buildings and untold numbers of inhabitants into the Mediterranean Sea.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution group said a deluge of the magnitude seen in northeastern Libya was an event that occurred once every 300-600 years.
They found that the rains were both more likely and heavier as a result of human-caused global warming, with up to 50 percent more rain during the period.
In a report looking at floods linked to Storm Daniel that swept across large parts of the Mediterranean in early September, they found that climate change made the heavy rainfall up to 10 times more likely in Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey and up to 50 times more likely in Libya.
But researchers stressed that other factors, including conflict and poor dam maintenance, turned the "extreme weather into a humanitarian disaster".
To unpick the potential role of global warming in amplifying extreme events, the WWA scientists use climate data and computer modelling to compare today's climate -- with roughly 1.2 degrees Celsius of heating since pre-industrial times -- to that of the past.
WWA scientists are normally able to give a more precise estimate of the role climate change has played -- or its absence -- in a given event.
But in this case they said the study was limited by a lack of observation weather station data, particularly in Libya, and because the events occurred over small areas, which are not as accurately represented in climate models.
That meant the findings have "large mathematical uncertainties", although the study said researchers were "confident that climate change did make the events more likely", because of factors including that current warming is linked to a 10-percent increase in rainfall intensity.
- 'Bigger impacts' -
"After a summer of devastating heatwaves and wildfires with a very clear climate change fingerprint, quantifying the contribution of global warming to these floods proved more challenging," said Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London.
"But there is absolutely no doubt that reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience to all types of extreme weather is paramount for saving lives in the future."
Daniel, which scientists said was the deadliest and costliest storm over the Mediterranean and Africa on record, formed in the eastern Mediterranean, causing deadly flooding across the region for the first 10 days of September.
The study said the magnitude of the impacts was driven by the vulnerability and exposure of communities and infrastructure.
For example, in central Greece, the damage was increased because cities are located in flood-prone areas.
In Libya, where the death toll in Derna alone has exceeded 3,300 and is expected to rise, the authors noted that "long-lasting armed conflict, political instability, potential design flaws and poor maintenance of dams all contributed to the disaster".
"This devastating disaster shows how climate change-fueled extreme weather events are combining with human factors to create even bigger impacts, as more people, assets and infrastructure are exposed and vulnerable to flood risks," said Julie Arrighi, director at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.
'We need a state': anger among Libya flood survivors
Benghazi, Libya (AFP) Sept 19, 2023 -
In a Libyan hospital ward, trauma and grief mix with disbelief and anger among the survivors of the flood disaster that killed untold thousands in the devastated city of Derna.
A tsunami-sized flash flood crashed through the Mediterranean city, razing entire neighbourhoods, after two upstream dams burst amid torrential rains on September 10.
"Two years ago, the big dam already had leaks, even though it was only half full," Abdelqader al-Omrani, 48, told AFP from his hospital bed in Benghazi, the major city in the eastern part of Libya.
"We had warned the municipality and demanded repairs," Omrani said, charging that the local authorities now "have our deaths on their conscience".
Omrani said that when his house, located close to one of the dams, was rapidly submerged late at night, he fled onto the roof terrace, then climbed onto a tree and scrambled up a mountain slope.
He said he later saw the lifeless bodies of six relatives amid the utter devastation of his hometown.
When the muddy waters finally receded, there were "no buildings, no trees, only the mountain and no living soul," he said, choking back tears.
"I experienced the apocalypse, without exaggeration."
Another patient, Ezzedine Miftah, 32, voiced similar anger, blaming official negligence for the disaster in which more than 3,300 bodies have been recovered and thousands more remain missing.
Speaking through his oxygen mask, Miftah said that "those in charge did not do their job and let the dams burst".
- 'A cause to defend' -
In Derna, rescue crews have pushed on with the grim task of digging out bodies and clearing the rubble in what, more than a week later, has turned into a dusty wasteland.
The remains of the dead, retrieved from shattered buildings and washed up on the seashore, have been buried in mass graves.
On Monday, several hundred protesters rallied at the city's main mosque mosque and accused the authorities of neglect, later torching the home of the mayor.
The outburst of public anger prompted the head of eastern Libya's administration, Osama Hamad, to dissolve Derna's municipal council.
The diaster has been blamed on the weather conditions that turned Storm Daniel into a hurricane-strength extreme weather event -- but also on the impact Libya's years of war and chaos have had on critical infrastructure, early-warning systems and emergency response.
The oil-rich country was hurled into turmoil after a NATO-backed uprising led to the overthrow and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi, followed by years of fighting between militias, mercenaries and jihadists, who at one stage controlled Derna.
Libya is now split between two rival centres of power: the UN-recognised government based in Tripoli in the west, and an eastern administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
The flood disaster sparked a new sense of national solidarity and stepped up cooperation on the emergency relief effort.
"After all the deaths, the country is finally united, everyone has rushed to help us," Omrani said, adding that Derna was now "a cause to defend".
- 'From problem to problem' -
Another survivor, a man in a nearby hospital bed, voiced scepticism that Libya will see real unity and stability any time soon.
"We need a state," said the 53-year-old who asked to remain anonymous.
He said there had been no official warning that the city's previously dry riverbed and adjoining neighbourhoods could be consumed by a churning wall of water he likened to "a tsunami".
"We received an alert that the sea level was going to rise," he said, which led him to take his wife and their four children to relatives living in the mountains.
He said that when he returned alone to the family home in Derna, he sought advice from local authorities and was assured his house was not at risk.
When the flood smashed into his house, he said, his head "literally hit the ceiling when the water filled the entire living room".
His hands and feet were broken as he was swept away, but he somehow survived "the worst horror in the world".
When he finally found his family the next day, the man said, "they thought they saw a ghost, they were sure I was dead".
He is now waiting for surgery for his fractures, which have become infected.
"We need billions," starting with "a new sewage network", he said.
Thinking about the dire needs of the traumatised community, he said: "People can neither drink nor wash with water.
"Libya has gone from problem to problem. But now we need a state, because Derna is devastated and there are still 70,000 people threatened by epidemics there."
Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
A world of storm and tempest
When the Earth Quakes
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
