[ad_1]
What do we know about floods?
Eastern parts Libya have been hit by devastating flooding after Storm Daniel hit the country’s Mediterranean coast. The confirmed death tolls given by officials so far have varied, but they are all in the thousands, and there are thousands more on lists of the missing.
Apocalyptic images of widespread damage have emerged in the port city of Derna, where authorities estimate up to 20,000 people may have died.
This photo from Monday shows extensive damage to buildings along the river the morning after the flood:
This photo taken on Tuesday shows a large body of water where a coastal road once stood:
The following, taken on Thursday, shows the scene four days after the flood:
Why was Derna so badly affected?
The city, with a population of 90,000, is crossed by the Wadi Derna, a seasonal river that flows from the highlands to the south and is normally protected from flooding by dams.
On Sunday night two dams collapsed, unleashing raging waters that swept through residential neighborhoods on both banks of the river.
In this video, a man points out the remains of one of the two destroyed dams:
These before and after satellite images offer an overview of the flood damage in the city…
…and these show the damaged neighborhoods in more detail:
You can see more before and after images. here.
This looping video also illustrates the scale of the destruction:
Where else was he hit?
Other heavily affected areas were the cities of Bayda, Shahatt, Marj and Susa, where images showed cars piled up on top of each other:
Is Libya equipped to deal with the devastation?
The collapse of the two dams in Wadi Derna underscored the weakness of Libya’s infrastructure after more than a decade of chaos. The oil-rich nation remains divided between two rival administrations: one in the east and one in the west, each backed by different militias and foreign governments.
What other countries have been affected by Storm Daniel?
The storm killed at least 27 people when it hit parts of Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey last week before moving south. This map and the satellite images below show the storm’s path:
Images from Greece from last week They showed cars washed into the sea and sinkholes opening up in the roads after days of torrential rain in the center of the country.