Floods in Libya caused by Storm Daniel killed 150 people

On Monday, almost 150 people were killed in freak floods in Libya as an outcome of storm Daniel which has swept the Mediterranean, an official said.

A spokesman for the Benghazi-based administration in Libya, Mohamed Massoud, told AFP that almost 150 people were killed as an outcome of flooding and torrential rainfalls left by storm Daniel in Derna, the Jabal al-Akhdar region, and the suburbs of Al-Marj. This is besides the tremendous material destruction that hit public and private properties, he added.

He said Oussama Hamad, the prime minister of the east-based government, and the head of a rescue committee as well as other ministers had travelled to Derna to estimate the area of the damage.

On Monday, the government of Hamad — which rivals a UN-brokered, internationally recognized transitional administration in Tripoli — on Monday declared Derna a “disaster area.”

Specialists have defined storm Daniel — which also hit regions of Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria in recent days, causing at least 27 people’s lives — as “severe in terms of the amount of water dropping in 24 hours.”

The storm hit eastern Libya on Sunday afternoon, notably the coastal town of Jabal al-Akhdar but also Benghazi, where a curfew was declared and schools shut for a few days.

Rescue crews were also deployed in Derna, 900 kilometers (560 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.

With a population of 100,000, the city lies in the wadi of a river holding the same name.

Massoud had said that East Libyan authorities had “lost connection with nine troopers during rescue operations” in the city.