Aid groups have warned of the growing risk posed by the spread of disease that could compound the humanitarian crisis inSunday’s flood submerged the port city of Derna, washing thousands of people and homes out to sea after two upstream dams burst under the pressure of torrential rains triggered by the hurricane-strength storm.
“Thousands of people don’t have anywhere to sleep and don’t have food,” said Salah Aboulgasem, the organisation’s deputy director of partner development. Only search and rescue teams would be allowed to enter parts of the town most affected by the flooding, said Salem Al-Ferjani, director general of the ambulance and emergency service in eastern Libya. Many citizens have already left the town voluntarily.But the Red Cross and the World Health Organization pointed out that contrary to widespread belief, the bodies of victims of natural disasters rarely pose a health threat.
An AFP journalist in Derna said central neighbourhoods on either side of the river, which normally dries up at this time of year, looked as if a steam roller had passed through, uprooting trees and buildings and hurling vehicles on to the port’s breakwaters. “We don’t know the extent of the problem,” UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Friday in Geneva as he called for coordination between Libya’s two rival administrations – the UN-backed, internationally recognised government in Tripoli and one based in the disaster-hit east.