– Oh God! Even just one, just let me find a body. After a flood ravaged the city a week ago, Sabreen Blil is one of those desperately searching for a small glimmer of hope. She finds herself in the ruins of her brother’s home, dressed in a black cloak. With her bare hands, she tries to dig her way through the collapsed walls The family is buried under. – Taym, Yazan, Luqman, Salmah, Tumador, Hakim and his wife. OMG! My family, where are you? Elil shows a picture of his nephew. – They used to play here, she says.REUTERS A week after the flood that swept the Libyan town of Derna into the sea, many families are still looking for their missing loved ones. It all started when two dams burst, and a torrent of water washed through the normally empty river bed. The city had more than 120,000 inhabitants. Hope is fading to find the missing in the flooded city. REUTERS Thousands have died. Thousands are missing. – I don’t know if I can get this roof off with my hands. If I can get it off, I would do it to find even just one body, says Blil. Even if I could only find a body, I could say that the brother is buried, says Blil as she takes some of the soil from the ruins. – Then I will be relieved. Rescue workers are now working frantically to save lives and deal with the risk of disease from decomposing bodies still trapped in the rubble and flood waters. The Red Cross now reports that the chance of finding survivors is minimal. Al Jazeera writes this. Blil’s entire family was buried under the ruins after the flood. Photo: Reuters Believes that the daughter is still alive For Ahmed Ashour (62), this means that the hope of finding survivors is disappearing every day. He has to take care of his three-month-old grandson. His daughter is gone. His wife still hasn’t accepted it. – She is convinced that her daughter is still alive. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 10,000 people are still missing. Volunteers carry victims to bury them in a mass grave. Photo: ZOHRA BENSEMRA / Reuters – Is all alone now Ahmed Kassar (69) sat in front of what was once his home, and tears flowed quietly down his face. He lost all four of his children, who drowned inside their flooded home, unable to escape before the floodwaters reached the roof. – Disaster. I’m all alone now. He lost all four of his children, who drowned inside their flooded home, unable to escape before the floodwaters reached the roof.REUTERS He escaped death only because he had traveled to neighboring Egypt for medical treatment just before the storm hit Derna. – I am not only sad about their death. I am sad that I left and was not able to fulfill my role as a father to them,” he told Reuters. Kassar lost all four of his children. Photo: ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORI / Reuters Demonstration against the authorities In Derna, hundreds of angry residents are protesting and demanding responsibility from the authorities. They claim that the authorities have not done enough to prevent the disaster, despite previous warnings about the city’s vulnerability to flooding. The residents of Derna had long been aware of the threat from neglected dams, and now the authorities are criticized for having neglected to evacuate the residents in time. Upper Dam at WadiMAXAR TECHNOLOGIES/AFP The two dams that burst, Abu Mansour and Derna, had not been maintained for many years, even though the city had previously experienced floods. Experts had long warned of the dangers, but repairs to the dams had stalled for over a decade. Aguila Saleh, head of Libya’s eastern parliament, has promised to rebuild Derna in just six months, but protesters doubt his promises and accuse him of betrayal. In Derna, hundreds of angry residents are protesting and demanding responsibility from the authorities. Photo: ZOHRA BENSEMRA / Reuters The authorities in the flood-stricken town of Derna say there are so many journalists in the town that they are an obstacle to the work of rescue teams. A minister said journalists had been asked to leave the city in “an attempt to create better conditions for the rescue teams to carry out their work more smoothly and efficiently”. Thousands dead IOM and the World Health Organization have confirmed the death toll at 3,900. The mayor of the Libyan city of Derna estimates that more than 20,000 people died. Here, a motorway along the coast disappeared after the storm.MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES/AFP More than 10,000 migrants lived in Derna before the flood. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) expects the death toll for migrants to be particularly high, considering that they settled in very low-lying areas. The enormous loss and disaster has put Libya in a humanitarian crisis, which was already characterized by instability after the removal of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Norway is contributing NOK 25 million to the flood victims in Libya through the UN, the Red Cross and Norwegian humanitarian partners. The number of dead is still uncertain. Photo: AMR ALFIKY / Reuters
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The possibility of finding people alive in Derna in Libya after the flood has become very small – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
