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Libya flooding: Cyclone Daniel Disaster Recently, the North African country of Libya was hit by a powerful tropical storm from the Mediterranean, Hurricane Daniel, a catastrophic weather event that caused a chain reaction. In this perennially arid country, heavy rains and floods swept through several cities, with the city of Derna being the hardest hit. According to a September 17 report released by the United Nations, citing data from the World Health Organization, the floods in Libya killed at least 3,958 people and left more than 9,000 missing. This flood not only poses a huge threat to the lives and property of local residents, but also brings the risk of disease transmission. The increase in Hurricane Daniel's intensity stems from rising SST and a slow southward shift to absorb water vapor. According to a report by the European Aviation Agency, the heaviest rains brought by Hurricane Daniel swept through the city of Drna, Libya's eastern coast, affecting about 16,000 people. It is said that the torrential rains caused the flooding to cover an area of 3.287 million square meters, equivalent to the area of three Forbidden Palaces. The floods quickly washed away a quarter of the city of Derna, with many residents still asleep, seen as the main cause of mass casualties in Derna. At present, a large number of missing people in the city of Derna may be buried in the mud of rubble or washed into the sea, making the search and rescue extremely difficult.
While the Libyan Red Crescent denied the previous U.N. figure of 11,300 missing, a spokesman for the National Assembly, which controls eastern Libya, said the actual number of people killed could be much higher than available figures. At the same time, the floods are not over and the risk of disease transmission in the aftermath remains. The Libyan CDC declared a one-year health emergency in the affected areas. The scene of this disaster is shocking, and the impact of the flooding will be even more long-lasting. Although we cannot control the natural environment, we can learn from it and develop better early warning mechanisms and emergency response plans to better prepare us for possible future disasters. Recently, a disaster caused by a Mediterranean storm ravaged Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey, killing at least 27 people. Known as "Daniel", the Mediterranean storm first formed off the coast of Greece and caused torrential floods in Greece and Turkey before making landfall in Libya. According to the United Nations, the city of Al-Bayda, nearly 100 kilometers from the city of Derna, set a new daily rainfall record of 414.1 millimeters (8 a.m. on September 10 to 8 a.m. on September 11). The storm looks more like a tropical storm from satellite images, and it may be one of the closest Mediterranean hurricanes on record to tropical cyclonic nature.
Although much weaker than eye-catching typhoons in the western Pacific, Mediterranean storms bring torrential rain, gales and storm surges to some European countries. Mediterranean storms are weather systems that combine the properties of tropical cyclones and mid-latitude storms, and are generally classified as subtropical cyclones. This storm system is generally weak and occurs in small numbers, usually occurring only 1 to 2 times a year. Mediterranean storms are at their peak from September to January, when Mediterranean SSTs have dropped and the torrential rainfall they bring often lasts for a short time. However, this year's high SSTs in the Mediterranean, combined with Daniel's slow crossing of the Mediterranean, moving south from Greece and absorbing large amounts of warm ocean vapour, caused heavy rainfall after landfall in Libya, making it an outlier for Mediterranean storms. It is worth noting that the formation of Mediterranean storms has a certain relationship with human activities. In recent years, the Mediterranean Sea has repeatedly experienced higher SSTs, and climate change is one of the important causes of rising ocean temperatures. Therefore, strengthening the response to climate change is an important way to prevent the occurrence of Mediterranean storms. Libyan floods: Recent floods in Libya, a combination of climate change and politics, have killed tens of thousands of people, most of them residents of the city of Derna. The Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that while the frequency of Mediterranean hurricanes is likely to decrease, global warming will increase the intensity of Mediterranean hurricanes.
Climate change could be the main driver of this flood. In addition to the effects of climate change, the political and socio-economic situation in Libya has exacerbated the seriousness of the disaster. At present, Libya is still in a situation where two governments are coexisting, due to years of war, there is no unified central government in Derna, the local infrastructure is old, and the flood prevention and disaster resistance is quite weak. In response to the current chaotic organizational state in Libya, UN World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Taalas said that if the weather department can issue a warning and emergency management agencies can evacuate people in advance, then large-scale casualties can be avoided. Preliminary investigation suggests that the two dams that collapsed previously had cracks that needed repair. However, as early as 2022, studies have pointed out that if a large flood occurs, it may lead to the collapse of two dams upstream, and the citizens of Derna will be at very high risk. Therefore, the flood was not without warning, but due to political and economic reasons, the Libyan government did not take effective preventive measures. For the flood, intern Zhang Shuyi provided her analysis. She believes that the political chaos in Libya has not only led to the aging of infrastructure and the weakening of flood resistance, but also to the lack and disorder of relief forces. Therefore, it is difficult for local residents to receive timely and effective rescue and support when they encounter floods. In general, the floods in Libya are the result of a combination of climate change and political factors.
The emergence of such a major disaster has put forward more urgent requirements for the global response to climate change and the maintenance of political stability. Recently, a devastating flood occurred in Derna, Libya, which destroyed the city and killed tens of thousands of people as a dam collapsed. The disaster has also attracted widespread attention from the international community. This flooded town was once one of the important meeting points of ancient Roman and Greek civilizations. However, the pursuit of modernization has led to a series of environmental problems, including long-standing misuse of water resources and large-scale construction of water conservancy projects. The Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also pointed out that the intensification of global warming will lead to more disasters, and the environmental damage caused by human activities is also one of the main reasons. Therefore, we need to pay more attention to environmental protection and sustainable development to mitigate the impact of global warming. On the other hand, the Master Plan for the Protection of the Palace Museum (2013-2025) issued by the Palace Museum also mentions the relationship between cultural relics protection and environmental protection. The plan clearly states that the Forbidden City will strengthen the protection of the environment and establish a sustainable cultural tourism industry while protecting cultural relics. In this world, environmental protection and heritage protection may not seem so easy to balance, but as the plan says, long-term cultural protection and tourism development can only be achieved through sustainable means.
We need to pay more attention to environmental issues and take action to solve existing problems in order to better protect our cultural heritage and the home of humanity.
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