Current:Home > Contact-usAP PHOTOS: Satellite images show flood devastation that killed more than 11,000 in Libya-LoTradeCoin
AP PHOTOS: Satellite images show flood devastation that killed more than 11,000 in Libya
View Date:2024-12-24 00:25:21
DERNA, Libya (AP) — Images taken by satellite show the physical devastation from a flood that killed at least 11,300 people in the eastern Libyan city of Derna.
Two dams above Derna burst early Monday under the pressure from rain dropped by a storm. The pent-up water swept blocks of low-lying downtown Derna out to the Mediterranean Sea.
Many said they heard loud explosions as the dams exploded. A flood several meters (many feet) high rolled down a mountainside into the city.
Images made about 400 miles above the earth’s surface show that the storm left a brown layer of mud and dirt across the city.
Untold numbers are buried under mud and debris that includes overturned cars and chunks of concrete. The death toll soared to 11,300 as search efforts continue, Marie el-Drese, secretary-general of the Libyan Red Crescent, told The Associated Press by phone Thursday.
She said that an additional 10,100 had been reported missing. Health authorities previously put the death toll in Derna at 5,500.
The satellite pictures show dirt and debris stretching out to sea into Derna’s shallow waters, which appeared visibly brown near the shoreline. Many bodies washed out to sea have come back with the tide, rescue workers say.
The floods have displaced at least 30,000 people in Derna, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, and several thousand others were forced to leave their homes in other eastern towns, it said.
Bridges and other basic infrastructure have also been wiped out, especially buildings near the Wadi Derna river.
Because of the damage to roads, aid only began trickling into the city on Tuesday evening.
veryGood! (738)
Related
- Sean Diddy Combs' Lawyers File New Motion for Bail, Claiming Evidence Depicts a Consensual Relationship
- Kate Hudson Bonds With Ex Matt Bellamy’s Wife Elle Evans During London Night Out
- Why Nick Cannon Thought There Was No Way He’d Have 12 Kids
- Has Conservative Utah Turned a Corner on Climate Change?
- John Krasinski named People's Sexiest Man Alive for 2024
- Clean Energy Loses Out in Congress’s Last-Minute Budget Deal
- A Sprawling Superfund Site Has Contaminated Lavaca Bay. Now, It’s Threatened by Climate Change
- Vermont police officer, 19, killed in high-speed crash with suspect she was chasing
- Digital Finance Research Institute Introduce
- A golden age for nonalcoholic beers, wines and spirits
Ranking
- Former North Carolina labor commissioner becomes hospital group’s CEO
- Read Ryan Reynolds' Subtle Shout-Out to His and Blake Lively's 4th Baby
- In Afghanistan, coal mining relies on the labor of children
- New York’s Heat-Vulnerable Neighborhoods Need to Go Green to Cool Off
- Opinion: Chris Wallace leaves CNN to go 'where the action' is. Why it matters
- Text: Joe Biden on Climate Change, ‘a Global Crisis That Requires American Leadership’
- Senate 2020: Mitch McConnell Now Admits Human-Caused Global Warming Exists. But He Doesn’t Have a Climate Plan
- Could Biden Name an Indigenous Secretary of the Interior? Environmental Groups are Hoping He Will.
Recommendation
-
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a long record of promoting anti-vaccine views
-
Ukraine's Elina Svitolina missed a Harry Styles show to play Wimbledon. Now, Styles has an invitation for her.
-
U.S. Emissions Dropped in 2019: Here’s Why in 6 Charts
-
A golden age for nonalcoholic beers, wines and spirits
-
Isiah Pacheco injury updates: When will Chiefs RB return?
-
From Brexit to Regrexit
-
Opioid settlement pushes Walgreens to a $3.7 billion loss in the first quarter
-
New nation, new ideas: A study finds immigrants out-innovate native-born Americans