Six Bangladeshis killed in Libya floods

Six Bangladeshi nationals were killed, and some other ones went missing in devastating floods in Libya that claimed an estimated 6,000 lives.

Of the six dead, four were identified as Shahin and Sujan from Rajbari district and Mamun and Shihab from Narayanganj, the Bangladesh Embassy in Libya said in a statement in Facebook on Wednesday.

The embassy said it maintains constant communication with authorities concerned, Bangladesh communities, and local and international organizations engaged in rescue operations to know the latest information about Bangladeshis living in flood-affected areas.

It also requested to contact its first secretary (labor) Md Rasel Mia (Mobile number- +218918580898) to know information about the Bangladeshi expatriates in different cities of the country and inform him about missing ones in the flooding.

The death toll from the massive floods in Libya caused by a severe storm stands at 6,000 and nearly 10,000 people went missing in the disaster, quoting the Red Cross, Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday.

According to Al Jazeera, Storm Daniel formed over Greece on September 4. It caused strong winds, heavy rains, flooding and deaths there and in Turkey and Bulgaria before crossing the Mediterranean.

The storm made landfall in Libya a few days later, causing flooding on Sunday in cities along its eastern coast, including Benghazi, Bayda and Derna.

Derna was the hardest hit after two dams burst upstream from the city, releasing an estimated 30 million cubic metres (39 million cubic yards) of water that tore through the city of about 100,000 inhabitants.

The water raced down Wadi Derna from the mountains to the sea. Deputy Mayor Ahmed Madroud said the way the city was built put most of the population in the water’s direct path.

The dams had not been maintained for more than two decades, and the infrastructure was not built to withstand the effects of this week’s floods, Madroud said.

Libya has seen more than a decade of conflict and is politically divided. An internationally recognised government sits in Tripoli in the west, but Derna is in an area controlled by a rival administration based in Benghazi.

IHR/SU