Thousands die as floodwaters inundate Libya

I was annoyed the other day because it started raining while I was running errands, and my umbrella was in the trunk. I had to get out in the rain, walk to the back of the vehicle, get the umbrella out of the trunk, and open it while holding a bag of items I needed to return. I got wet.

R1 You get wet often?

First the Moroccan earthquake. Now this. It’s God’s will and the first of the plagues!

Ten thousand people are missing. This is outrageous.

My mind can’t get wrapped around this. It’s monstrous. Those poor people in that already miserable country.

Yikes, 10k missing -- terrible. That's more than half of the number of victims in Japan's tsunami.

It's raining now. I wonder if I'll drown, too.

I watch footage of the 311 Japanese tsnumani regularly on YouTube. That is a society that pulled together during a terrible time..there's no way American society will be able to do the same

The search for survivors and recovery of bodies in desert summer heat is going to be an absolute nightmare.

R6 The Indonesia tsunami was horrible, too. When the surf goes waaaaay out, run.

How absolutely awful. Here I am feeling sorry for myself, and so many have it so much worse. I'm just sorry these disasters happen and so many die and suffer and become displaced.

It will be double that number and more by the time everything gets sorted out too R6.

[quote]You get wet often?

Only when cagemeat escapes from the nearby penitentiary.

I went through Derna in 2000. The old city had a quint market but it was destroyed in 2018. Kind of a shit hole town but a nice location. I was on my way to the magnificent ruins at Cyrene.

I think 1/4 of the city was washed out. The core. Thousands dead and horrible but the news never frames the total scale of the location and what is destroyed and what is not. Like a few weeks ago when people understood that the island Maui had burned to ashes when it was one fat slice of one town.

*quaint

The videos of the rampaging water look terrifying.

this one.

R17, I believe that is Japan.

R18 you may be right but some troll posted it as Libya. The buildings look too high quality.

Won't someone please think of the CAFTANS?

That video at R16 was odd. Who the hells adds a music track to a video showing people’s lives in danger?

R8

Why do you watch that footage? Not trying to be snarky but I am curious as to what you get out of it. Is it intriguing on a scientific level?

R22, I'm not R8, but I've watched tsunami videos because I work near a somewhat tsunami-hazard zone, and I'd like to know what to do if/when the time comes.

And the answer to that... is to mainly hope for luck.

Makes sense - again, I’m not making fun because I watch trashy cop body cam videos myself - I’m just curious. Do the videos give you a sense of control or actual tips on what to do?

R24, mainly good tips on what it looks like when the tide has receded, what the initial incoming wave looks like (a line of white foam in the distance), and how much time you have to get to higher ground.

Also lots of examples of what [italic]not[/italic] to do. Don't stand around and watch. Forget all belongings. Never go back to retrieve something.

Seeing a white line of foam off in the distance sounds pretty terrifying.

Fuck y'all!

Neither of those videos is Libya.

Typical. But the Internet is nothing but misinformation.

We came, we saw, they drowned. CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE

I watch footage of people who can barely stand upright because the earth is shaking so violently evacuate to higher ground only to see their entire town wash away 15 minutes later. They had a mere 15 minutes to evacuate and its astonishing footage. I'm sure there's a Golden Girls rerun that would interest you more.

A unique looking environment excluding the catastrophic flooding. Much more interesting than doobuy

How is this cleanup even possible

Death Toll from Libyan Floods Tops 6,000 in Latest Climate Disaster

R31

I suppose you’re speaking to me - I actually don’t watch GG and I don’t care that you watch disaster videos. I already said that I watch trashy videos myself so I wasn’t judging and it’s OK to answer without snark or defensiveness. I was just curious as to why you watched them, what draws you to them: is the impending disaster? Is it watching the people realize what’s about to happen? Is it the natural movements of the earth and water?

People were talking about the white line of foam out in the sea, so I was thinking it was being totally flooded from a sea surge. But, damns broke with water coming down from higher elevations. So both? Not good.

The footage was recorded in real time and the survivors had 15 minutes to get to higher ground. It is shocking footage. The Japanese built levees to prepare for this catastrophic event however the earthquake was so violent and the tsnumai so powerful, the levees were no match for the flood waters. 15 minutes? I am waiting for a coffee in the morning longer than 15 minutes.

Two dams in Libya burst and caused the flooding. The survivors say the dams were not properly maintained

Damn.

Damn dams.

Lockerbie says hello Libya.

"Perfectly happy to rule over the rubble" Are Libyan leaders responsible for thousands of deaths?

Failed ex-state. And it could have been a rich country.

R29 i wonder when the first news station will AI generate footage that does not exist. AI will bring a nightmare upon us in this regard. It must be very tempting.

R33, Indonesia and Sri Lanka (also poor countries) had to contend with this same tragic and logistical nightmare. :(

Libya is not poor. Just broken.

On that regard, neither is Indonesia poor.

The cause is ruling parties who don't give a shit about individuals and the lives of individuals. Apparently the dams were in a disastrous state and no one acting during the storm to avert 2 dam failures and also protect the population from inevitable evidence those damns were going to fail.

I guess two things could have been done - emergency evacuation during the torrential rains of the low lying areas of that city and also controlled release causing massive flooding on the river bed down to the sea.

This is like the Johnston flood and working engineers would have seen it coming and been obliged to prevent human catastrophe.

Libya has been decimated by 12 years of civil war and chaos.

Libya has one of the highest if not the highest gpd in Africa.

GDP I meant

Estimated death toll now over 20,000

[quote] Failed ex-state

Smashed ex-state.

These poor people don't get a break.

Looking at the videos my impression is that Derna's frequently cited population of 85,000 to 90,000 was undercounted. Still a quarter of the city gone does factor to 20K+.

Libya Flood Disaster That Killed Thousands Was Decades in Making

Dams that collapsed in the storm had received no maintenance in more than 20 years despite repeated warning

Derna’s mayor, Abdul Moneem Al-Ghaithi, issued an order on his official Facebook account to evacuate parts of the city. He also sent excavators to move rocks to act as levees along the coastline—believing the worst risk of flooding would come from the sea.

But later that evening, the evacuation order was overruled by Haftar. (RUSSIAN BACKED WARLOARD) Chairing a cabinet meeting late Saturday, the warlord said he had decided to stick to a curfew, granting a two-day vacation so that locals could stay at home, according to a video of the meeting posted on local media.

“We ask God [for the rain] to be very beneficial for the people of the region,” he said.

Soon after, locals received a text message: “Stay at home,” it said, according to a copy of the message seen by the Journal.

Meanwhile, in Tripoli, where an internationally recognized government was nominally in charge of Libya’s water infrastructure, the authorities showed no sign that they were aware of the risk of disaster.

“Dear citizens, please be informed that the dams are in good condition and things are still under control and there are no fears of collapse at this moment,” the Ministry of Water Resources said in a statement at around midnight Sunday.

Engineers from the nearby tech university knew damned well the deplorable condition and has been sounding the alarm for years.

Libya floods kill over 11,300 as city of Derna is swept away

Libya flooding: Fears of up to 20,000 dead

It's what Allah wanted

Don't go there with that anti moose lamb bs

[quote]Those poor people in that already miserable country.

Take heart, there are fewer suffering.

R50, that is catastrophic. But why were all of these people allowed to live directly at or even near the dams' outflow?

I once watched a handsome Libyan guy play with his fat muslim willy on chjaturbate. I sure hope he made it out alright.

R61, praise Allah -- he used his fat Libyan willy as a flotation device to ride out into the Mediterranean Sea!

No maintenance on the dams since 2002, and they've been warned about this happening.

[quote] the evacuation order was overruled by Haftar. (RUSSIAN BACKED WARLOARD)

I've not kept up on this man and who may be backing him now but Haftar for years was CIA's main Libyan boy. After he failed to overthrow Qaddafi he was brought to America, given a home in Vienna Virginia just a few minutes drive away from CIA headquarters, and granted American citizenship. He was sent back after Qaddafi stupidly was overthrown and murdered. Whatever Haftar now is doing in Libya's debris America initiated and enabled.

I'm guessing this is one grift the Clintons are going to have to pass on.

What grift is that R65?

How they and the foundation always show up for some disaster and no one ever seems to really know where the money went.

After Hillary's loss the "charitable contributions" laundered through the foundation dropped significantly.

Just like her face.

The death toll here will be way more than 20,000 dead - if they ever even know how many.

Nighttime flooding!

the night shot is hellish

How long did this flooding last?

All backwards Arabic nations must suffer and repent!

The sad thing is that this will probably lead to religious Muslim fundies claiming that the dead were sinners. That's what happened in Banda Aceh, Indonesia following their tsunami. The region went from already devout to even more fundie.

[quote] The Japanese built levees to prepare for this catastrophic event however the earthquake was so violent and the tsnumai so powerful, the levees were no match for the flood waters.

The earth dropped several feet as one techtonic plate slid under another. That made the 30 ft sea wall only 27 or 28 ft high, which meant the water easily breached it.

Lol R51

Go to Saudi and get your head cut off, bitch!

R76, the Japanese also built designated tsunami evacuation centers in the region. However, the height of tsunami inundation (in some places over 100 feet) exceeded the height of many of these shelters, and thus, many people who followed proper procedure ended up washed away. To be fair, nobody expected waves of that height and magnitude.

This doesn't sound good.

Turkish teams recover bodies in Derna

That video at R71 is horrifying.

I suppose all of the cruising areas are gone also. Now where will the local gays meet up?

This is a dry, arid region of Africa, too. What are they going to do without that reservoir of water?

Libya?

At least they have lots of water.

"investigation"= it wasn't me

R86, not surprising.

Good explanation of what happened and how the dams were situated to the city. Bummer for Derna the Libyan government had ceased to exist.

Don't think that this can't happen here [in the States]. A lot of our dams are poorly maintained and in disrepair.

R89

R90, that is true that I'm being a Debbie Downer, but this type of thing has happened before!

I'm joshing you and agree. I posted Johnstown at R47.

Grim.

Of course let the survivors get on a boat to try and cross over to Europe and watch all the sympathetic and sorrowful comments dry up....

This is nothing . Just wait until the Three Gorges Dam cracks.

Looks like Libya is out of luck. The Clinton Foundation is concentrating on helping Ukraine. LOL

What amuses you about this?

[quote] What amuses you about this?

I've wondered for years about the supervillian laugh

that he died clip is the only time Hillary seemed genuine and truly excited.

R94, that is a terrifying and catastrophic scenario, and given China's reputation for less-than-stellar engineering and construction, I'm not entirely sure that's too far off from becoming an eventual reality.

Libya is in death and decay hell right now.

Allah’s Nation

Fukkking skkkum.

Derna mayor's house burnt down in protests.

^If only we had as much gumption to get rid of [italic]our[/italic] terrible, corrupt politicians.

R104 had the same thought before I read your comment.

I'm not American and I also had the same thought about the US R104 and R105.

You seriously need a large Guillotine factory to be going at full speed there.

Now that mayor knows what being homeless feels like

It is a very beautiful location with views of the mountain and the sea.

He sure does R107.

The mountains get green a bit further west on the coast. The Greek city of Apollonia is now Sousse (French) or Susa. Fascinating ruins litter the mostly barren coastline. However Libya is extremely rich in history and it's a pity they haven't managed a stable enough government to protect their heritage and share it with the world as a travel destination.

Here's a report in English on Susa

16 officials arrested in flood investigation