On September 10, Hurricane Daniel hit eastern Libya, causing one of the deadliest floods in North Africa since 1927, and the Libyan Red Crescent Society said on the 14th that the number of victims of floods in the eastern part of the country had exceeded 11,000, and another 20,000 were missing.
The Libyan port city of Derna, where 35,000 people were displaced and two dams burst, causing "a quarter of the city to disappear completely," was the worst hit. On the 14th, the city of Derna entered the highest level of emergency.
The World Health Organization announced on the 14th that it will allocate 2 million US dollars to assist Libya affected by hurricanes and floods.
Where exactly did "Daniel" come from? And what is a "Mediterranean hurricane"? What kind of damage did this flood cause? Why was Libya so badly affected? Will disasters happen again in the future?
Where exactly did "Daniel" come from?
Hurricane Daniel formed in Greece and was named after the Greek National Meteorological Service. Last week, "Daniel" attacked southeastern Europe, killing many people in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria.
On September 10, Daniel began to hit eastern Libya, and on the 11th the hurricane hit western Egypt.
On September 5-6, "Daniel" reportedly brought record rainfall to Greece. A measuring station in the village of Zagora received 750 millimetres of rain in 24 hours, equivalent to 18 months of rainfall. In Thessaly, an agricultural powerhouse in central Greece, many measuring stations measured 400 to 600 millimetres of rainfall in 24 hours, severely impacting the local economy. In addition, the city of Bada also set a new record of 414.1 mm of daily rainfall.
On September 10, Hurricane Daniel reached its peak intensity, with strong winds of 70 to 80 kilometers per hour, causing communication disruptions and the toppling of trees. Torrential rains led to flash floods in several cities, causing severe disasters and washing residents of several communities into the sea.
Comparison of Derna, Libya before and after Hurricane Daniel
And what is a "Mediterranean hurricane"?
According to China Meteorological News, Hurricane Daniel took on the characteristics of a "Mediterranean hurricane" as it moved towards Libya. What exactly is a "Mediterranean hurricane"?
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea belonging to the Atlantic Ocean, and the world's largest "land sea", surrounded by Europe, Asia, the African continent, only through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic Ocean, after the opening of the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea can be connected to the Red Sea. The Mediterranean has a high latitude, but its average SST is not low, reaching 28°C in summer. In this way, higher SSTs make it possible for tropical cyclones (tropical cyclones called typhoons on the continent and hurricanes in the United States, essentially low-pressure systems with warm cores).
According to the School of Earth and Space Sciences of the University of Science and Technology of China, the sea temperature in the Mediterranean Sea is difficult to reach more than 28 °C, generally much lower than the temperature of the tropical ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea itself is relatively narrow and long, with the Apennine Peninsula, the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor and other "obstacles" in the middle, and the range for the development of tropical cyclones is very limited, so in general, tropical cyclones that can fully develop in the Mediterranean Sea are relatively rare.
According to statistics, every year or two, "tropical cyclones" emerge from the Mediterranean Sea. According to the analysis of China Meteorological News, this storm system is usually relatively weak and does not have much impact on land, and occasionally some storms will bring heavy rain, winds and storm surges to some European countries. However, Hurricane Daniel penetrated deep into the African continent and wreaked havoc on Libya in northern Africa.
Viewed from satellite images, the storm system looks more like a tropical storm (meteorologically speaking, two levels below the intensity of a typhoon), which may be one of the closest "Mediterranean hurricanes" ever recorded to tropical cyclones. Although its intensity is much weaker than the eyed super typhoon in the western Pacific, it made landfall deep into the Sahara Desert, causing serious damage and disaster.
Above: A coastal road in Derna, Libya, July 1. Below: Damage after flooding in Derna, Libya, September 13. Photo/Visual China
A quarter of Derna's disappeared
On September 10, "Daniel" landed on the Mediterranean coast of eastern Libya.
In the early morning of the 11th, the first dam upstream of the city of Derna collapsed, and a tsunami-like flood poured down the valley of the Derna River and rushed towards the city of Derna. At about 2:30 a.m. on the 11th, residents of the city of Derna heard a loud noise, probably the sound of the collapse of the second dam. In the blink of an eye, a quarter of the city of Derna was flooded.
Residential areas, highways, bridges, ports... Everywhere the flood went, it destroyed everything.
In Derna, on the 14th, video showed the neighborhood strewn with rubble, cars engulfed in mud and rubble, and two dams upstream of the city of Derna, falling apart. Large numbers of missing people are either buried in rubble, submerged in mud or washed into the sea.
Arab television quoted the mayor of Derna as saying that depending on the extent of the damage, it is expected that the number of people killed by flooding in the city of Derna could reach 18,000 to 20,000. At the same time, he said that the bodies of the victims who could not be removed in time may trigger the spread of infectious diseases. At present, the electricity in Derna city is still being restored, 60% of the residential areas have been electrified, and the local affected residents are also actively carrying out self-help.
Valdia, about 143 kilometers west of Derna, was also hit hard by flooding. After the floodwaters receded, the deformed and cracked roads were revealed, houses collapsed along the roads, and the ground was covered with sediment. Local residents have sent out distress signals and are waiting for help.
The eastern Libyan coastal village of Susa was also the hardest hit by the floods. At present, Susa has been completely washed away by flooding, but the rescue team has not yet reached the Susa area due to the obstruction of roads connecting with the outside world. Libya's emergency and emergency services said a humanitarian disaster could strike Susa. Since the 13th, all power and communications in the area have been cut off, which has also complicated communication work, and the power system here has not yet been restored. Before the floods, there were about 8,000 residents in Susa, and it is unclear how many people died in the flooding in the area.
On September 11, 2023, local time, people in Derna, Libya, inspected areas damaged by flash floods. Visual China map
Why was Libya so badly affected?
Will disasters happen again in the future?
According to Libya's National Meteorological Centre, Hurricane Daniel caused 400 mm/h of rainfall, the highest recorded in the last 40 years. Libya is a desert region that is too resilient to heavy rainfall and prone to flooding if it encounters heavy rainfall.
The main reason for the massive number of deaths and injuries caused by the flooding in the city of Derna was the collapse of two dams upstream of Derna, which washed away many of the victims in their sleep.
Located on the northern coast of Libya, the city of Derna is located in a low river valley that divides the city in two. Libya's local media "Libyan Free People" channel released an aerial video on the 12th, you can see that the flood seems to tear a huge crack in the city, and the buildings and vegetation everywhere are almost completely erased.
Libya is a Mediterranean country with a population of more than 6 million, due to years of war, there is no unified central government, the local infrastructure is old, and the flood control capacity is weak. At the time of the incident, there was neither a flood warning system nor an evacuation emergency plan.
It is understood that experts in academia have warned that the risk of two dams on the Derna River is extremely high, and they have called for all parties to invest in strengthening the dams. Abdelwanees Ashoor, a hydrologist at Mukhtar University in Libya, published a paper in 2022 warning that seasonal flooding poses a great threat to the Derna dam: "If a flood of severity equivalent to 1959 were to occur again, it could lead to the collapse of both dams, and the citizens of Derna would be at extremely high risk." He also called for immediate measures to maintain the dam regularly.
Anas El-Gomati, founder of the Libyan Sadeq think tank, denounced the catastrophic floods not only as a "natural disaster" but also as a "man-made disaster" for the long-term collapse of the governance system under the Libyan conflict.
In the context of global warming, catastrophic weather is likely to have more catastrophic consequences for fragile countries like Libya. Some French media analyzed that the deadly flooding brought by Hurricane Daniel to Libya has sounded the alarm for climate change and the dangerous situation of lack of maintenance of old infrastructure in the context of climate change.
Leslie Mabon, a lecturer in environmental systems at the Open University in the UK, said: "Libya's complex political situation and protracted military conflict pose enormous challenges in developing risk communication and hazard assessment strategies, coordinating rescue operations, and maintaining critical infrastructure such as dams. "As long as the political situation is unstable, climate disasters will be repeated in Libya.
Comprehensive sources: CCTV News, Central Radio Network, Xinhua News Agency, The Paper, Beijing News, China Newsweek
Editor: Yang Yanlin
Responsible editor: Zhou Shangdou
Reviewed: Feng Fei