Rescue teams have arrived from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Qatar, said Derna mayor al-Ghaithi
“We actually need teams specialised in recovering bodies,” he said. “I fear that the city will be infected with an epidemic due to the large number of bodies under the rubble and in the water.”
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Benghazi, said a field hospital was part of Qatar’s contribution to this “seemingly growing international aid effort to Libya”.
“This is one of three Qatari military … cargo planes expected to arrive in Benghazi today,” Stratford said.
The aid also includes “medical equipment, medicine, food, tents”, Stratford said. “All the aid here is going to be taken to Derna as quickly as possible.”
Moreover, Al Jazeera’s Malik Traina, reporting from Tripoli, said there has been an outpouring of support from Libyans themselves from across the country.
“We haven’t seen this type of unity for many years here in the country,” Traina said.
Large government convoys with equipment from western Libya have arrived in the east, he said. Volunteer convoys with assistance are also heading towards the east.
“We’re seeing also now volunteers and people giving whatever they can – water, food, medicine, whatever supplies they can.”
Rescue operations are complicated by deep political fractures in the country of seven million people that has lacked a strong central government and been at war on and off since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
An internationally recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) is based in Tripoli, in the west, while a parallel administration operates in the east, including Derna.
Criticism of local authorities in eastern Libya, including those in Derna, has emerged with some saying that locals were not informed that they had to evacuate before the torrent of water flowed through the city.
However, al-Ghaithi insisted on Wednesday that residents were informed ahead of the flooding.
‘We undertook all the precautions and informed the … the inhabitants of the areas the disaster could have taken place, we created an emergency room .. the security forces carried out their duty,” he said.
Source: Al Jazeera
The Ethiopian Herald September 15/2023
