Hundreds of body bags now line the mud-stained streets of Derna, awaiting mass burial, while traumatized and grief-stricken residents search ruined buildings for their missing loved ones and bulldozers clear the streets of debris and sand. Clearing the mountains.
At a ruined house, a rescue team pumped out water and found a woman’s lifeless arms still holding her dead baby, an AFP journalist reports.
“This disaster was violent and brutal,” said Yann Friedez, head of the Libyan delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who had a team in Derna when it was hit by floodwaters.
“A wave up to seven meters (23 feet) high destroyed buildings and swept infrastructure out to sea. Now family members are missing, bodies are being washed back to shore and homes have been destroyed.”
Abdelaziz Bousmya, who lives in the Chihaa neighbourhood, which was spared the wall of water that devastated lower districts, estimates that at least one-tenth of the city’s population of 100,000 was killed.