It takes twice as long as before to reach the Libyan city of Derna. While driving on the road from Benghazi you see red lakes that were once farms. Traffic slows down when you come closer to the citizen. Flooded poles on the roads are scattered on the ground. The vehicles were avoiding potholes on the highway and going on temporary routes that have been built in a hurry. The nearest bridge to Derna has been washed away in the water. Locals are standing at the corner of the place, peeping and taking pictures.
At a distance, military personnel were giving masks to drivers and passengers sitting in vehicles. People were already wearing them in vehicles running in the other direction. The reason soon became clear.
Some parts of the city smell of death and it is impossible to describe it. Some gutter smells and some smells that are difficult to identify. Sometimes it gets so severe that it gets worse, especially when you're inspecting it near the port where rescue teams tell me that bodies are still flowing there. This morning they found three bodies that reached there with waves and were trapped in a pile of debris.
Broken wood, tires, fridges and car parts all float in stagnant water. The pictures and videos coming from Derna are very shocking. But seeing this, you prepare yourself and you realize that so much damage was caused by the devastation of the floods. The destructive power of water has been extraordinary.
Cars are scattered like toys. One vehicle is inside the terrace around the mosque while one vehicle has sunk inside the building. More than 1,000 people have been buried in mass graves so far, according to a UN report. Strong trees have been uprooted from the ground, their roots in the air. Everything else is gone. Many lives, people's houses, goods were washed away. In this part of the city of Derna, man has been wiped out, the lives of those who survived have changed forever.۔ There is sadness and palpable anger in the air. Thousands of people are missing. The mayor of Derna has warned that the total number could reach 20,000, as Faris Ghassar lost five members of his family to the boiling water. "We were told to stay at home, why? They should have told us that the storm had arrived. Told us that the dam is old and broken. ‘
"Some of these destroyed buildings were 100 years old. It's all politics. There is a government in the west, there is a government in the east. This is a big problem. One of the dead was a 10-month-old daughter from Persia. They take out their phones to show me their pictures. First, they show them a living picture, but bodies wrapped in blankets. Their faces show their ordeal. Faris Ghassar loses five members of his family in boiled water.
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