Survivors of Cyclone “Daniel” as it battered the Libyan city of Terna were minutes away from sudden death, killing more than 11,000 people in seconds in one of the country’s worst natural disasters.
Many residents described the devastation to Britain’s Sky News network as a flood caused by an earthquake tsunami.
The issue is even more acute in the Libyan city of Derna, nicknamed “al-Zahira,” where residents search for their relatives and loved ones with their bare hands.
Reports indicate that a quarter of Terna was washed away by devastating currents and turned into a mudflat as a result of the floods caused by the collapse of two of the city’s dams.
One of the two collapsed dams is now known as the “Death Dam”.
Days after the disaster, which has killed more than 11,000 people so far, some residents are still coming to the dam to see the scene of the tragedy that killed thousands in seconds.
A Sky News reporter reports that the city, located in eastern Libya, looks like a “huge graveyard”.
For example, there was a multi-storied building that was torn from its foundation and buried in mud.
The reporter says that everywhere you turn in the town, you can see destruction and the smell of death wafts through the air.
The force of the water from the two collapsing dams was so strong that, as residents say, the sound of their collapse was like explosions, one explosion followed by another and a third.
Tons of water from both dams washed away tons of rocks and destroyed entire residential blocks, as well as 3 bridges and buildings that were leveled or suffered massive damage.
Some residents, as they say, had only 20 minutes to escape from these massive streams.
Storm “Daniel” caused massive damage to Terna’s infrastructure, making it difficult for rescue workers and relief teams to reach the affected areas.
Residents searching for their relatives said they had already received several warnings about Storm Daniel, but what happened was a disaster and the result of human error.
According to construction engineer Gandhi Hammoud, the cause of the disaster was negligence, pointing to several warnings issued by experts about the poor condition of the two dams in Terna.
He said he saw his neighbors and friends screaming in fear as the floodwaters flooded their homes and apartments, “and then there was silence, which meant they were dead.”
“We saw some friends literally being blown away from us,” he added.
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