Go Back
  • For Business
  • |
  • Warnings
  • Data Suite
  • Newsletters
  • Advertising
  • Superior Accuracy™
Tropical trouble could stir near Southeast beaches around 4th of July. Get details Chevron right
Severe storms, flash flooding to bring July Fourth holiday travel hassles. Get details Chevron right

Columbus, OH

76°F
Location Chevron down
Location News Videos
Use Current Location
Recent

Columbus

Ohio

76°
No results found.
Try searching for a city, zip code or point of interest.
settings
Columbus, OH Weather
Today WinterCast Local {stormName} Tracker Hourly Daily Radar MinuteCast Monthly Air Quality Health & Activities

Around the Globe

Hurricane Tracker

Severe Weather

Radar & Maps

News

News & Features

Astronomy

Business

Climate

Health

Recreation

Sports

Travel

For Business

Warnings

Data Suite

Newsletters

Advertising

Superior Accuracy™

Video

Winter Center

AccuWeather Early Hurricane Center Top Stories Trending Today Astronomy Heat Climate Health Recreation In Memoriam Case Studies Blogs & Webinars

News / Severe Weather

Derna valley was once a 'paradise.' Now there’s nothing left but devastation

Across the eastern Libyan city of Derna, thousands died and thousands more are still missing after a catastrophic flood hit the city. Survivors recount the horror that followed the disaster.

By Sarah El Sirgany and Jomana Karadsheh, CNN

Published Sep 17, 2023 8:46 AM EDT | Updated Sep 17, 2023 8:46 AM EDT

Copied

Volunteers in hazmat suits scan the sea for dead bodies in Derna. (Sarah Sirgany/CNN)

Derna, Libya (CNN) — Tarek Fahim was taking videos of the water filling behind the dam in the Derna valley in Libya late Saturday night. Up until 1:30 a.m., Storm Daniel was just wind and rain. When he went home an hour later, it took very little time between the moment he heard the dam burst and the gushing water flooding his street.

“The amount of water and the cars it was pushing felt like an earthquake,” he says.

He moved the family to the rooftop, and they climbed up a water tank as the water kept rising. They survived. “Maybe one percent of those who lived on ground floors survived,” he says of his neighborhood around al-Fanar street.

When the water level gradually receded, he went back down to check on his neighbors, “but there was meter-high mud on the street,” he recalls. “Just in 15 buildings around me, 33 people died,” he says. As he starts listing the names of the friends he lost, he breaks down in tears.

The crystal blue water has turned into a murky brown. (Sarah Sirgany/CNN)

Across the eastern Libyan city of Derna, thousands died and thousands more are still missing after a catastrophic flood hit the city in the early hours of Sunday. A Saturday report from the United Nations estimates at least 11,300 people are dead and 10,100 are missing in the city alone.

Approximately 170 people have been killed outside of Derna due to the flooding, the UN report said.

Tarek’s bare feet are covered in mud from walking through the side streets helping neighbors go through the wreckage of their homes. The trauma and loss are visible on every face. Men sit in front of their hollowed-out houses, some silent, others sobbing.

Across the street Talal Fartas is going through what remains of his jewelry store, picking gold necklaces and bracelets from the mud. “The safe was swept away. Everything is gone,” he says.

Only a few traces are left behind of what the shops lining the street used to sell. Pieces of metal dangle from the ceilings of gutted-out stores. Vehicles are wedged in terraces and entrances of the low-rise buildings. A purple lunch box sits under a mangle of trees and light posts. A couple of blocks up north, the rubble piled up along the sides of the road rises higher and higher until it becomes a swath of debris.

When the two dams outside the city burst, they unleashed a powerful flood that leveled residential blocks. The eastern and western parts of Derna are now separated by a wasteland of destruction that runs across the city all the way to the Mediterranean.

Derna was split into two after the flood swept entire neighborhoods. (Sarah Sirgany/CNN)

Rescuers go through the collapsed buildings looking for survivors with little hope. Almost all they find are dead bodies and more are believed to be under the heaps of crumbled cement.

Back at al-Fanar street, a man calls for help to dig out the bodies of four children from under the mud.

International aid and rescue missions are slowly trickling in, but they hardly match the scale of devastation. Local volunteers and emergency workers from different parts of Libya did what they could in the immediate aftermath.

Abdel Wahab Haroun, 21, says he retrieved 40 bodies from the sea on Sunday. He tied a rope around his waist connected to a line of volunteers to brave the high waves. “There were dead people everywhere, children a few months old, elderly people, pregnant women. There are families of 30-40 people all gone,” he says.

Haroun volunteers at a collection point for the city’s victims set up at an open area next to the sea. A rotten stench fills the air every time a dead body is brought in.

Neighborhoods in the city were completely destroyed. (Sarah Sirgany/CNN)

The remains of two people are in half-filled black bags on the ground. A pickup truck pulls up with two more bodies wrapped in blankets. “This one is too decomposed,” a volunteer shouts before putting them in white bags to load on a bigger truck. Officials try to document identities when possible ahead of mass burials at a different location. A small truck fumigates the air periodically as doctors and medics there warn of health hazards.

Derna’s waterfront has become the main staging area for delivering dead bodies and transporting them for burial, in a process that has been kept to one location due to the health hazards of decomposing bodies.

Two female volunteers from Derna told CNN that the bodies they are seeing now are no longer identifiable because they “all look the same” while decomposing.

One of the women, Asma Awad, said she is still in disbelief. “It was the most beautiful city ... I used to call it the mermaid,” she told CNN, before bursting into tears. “Do you think it will ever rise up again?”

Destruction of entire neighborhoods in Derna. (Sarah Sirgany/CNN)

Along the damaged promenade, volunteers in hazmat suits scan the sea looking for washed-up bodies. The crystal blue water has turned into a murky brown. The waves push broken furniture to the shore. Wrecked vehicles are stuck in what remains of the wave barrier further out in the sea.

“There are probably people in these cars you see in the water, but we don’t have the equipment to reach them,” says Ibrahim Hassan, head of the ambulance services in Kofra, southern Libya.

He needs heavy and more sophisticated equipment to retrieve these vehicles and search the water for the bodies of those still missing.

“This valley was a paradise full of pomegranate trees,” one volunteer says as she waits for next drop off of bodies.

“Derna is gone,” Abdel-Wahab says.

More to read:

Lee turns deadly as powerful storm bombards Maine, Nova Scotia
Nigel strengthens into the Atlantic's 5th hurricane of 2023 season
What to do when a flash flood hits

The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Report a Typo

Weather News

video

Huge dust storm shrouds Las Vegas

Jul. 2, 2025
Weather Forecasts

July 4 Forecast: Thunderstorms to focus over Upper Midwest and Florida

Jul. 2, 2025
video

Widespread storms dump flooding rainfall through the Southeast

Jul. 1, 2025
Show more Show less Chevron down

Topics

AccuWeather Early

Hurricane Center

Top Stories

Trending Today

Astronomy

Heat

Climate

Health

Recreation

In Memoriam

Case Studies

Blogs & Webinars

Top Stories

Severe Weather

Severe storms, flash flooding to bring July 4 holiday travel hassles

1 hour ago

Weather News

9-year-old dies in hot car outside mother's Texas workplace

53 minutes ago

Weather News

Tropical trouble could stir near Southeast beaches around 4th of July

1 hour ago

Weather News

Storm chaser stages whirlwind proposal with real tornado

20 hours ago

Weather News

Flights cancelled as Atlanta airport recovers from severe weather

2 days ago

More Stories

Featured Stories

Travel

Fourth of July gas hasn’t been this cheap since 2021

21 hours ago

Recreation

Two people rescued after going overboard on Disney cruise ship

22 hours ago

Weather News

Fossil reveals ‘Last of Us’-type fungus likely lived with dinosaurs

6 days ago

Health

'Inverse' vaccines may hold key to challenge autoimmune diseases

1 day ago

Weather News

World’s most liveable city for 2025 revealed

1 week ago

AccuWeather Severe Weather Derna valley was once a 'paradise.' Now there’s nothing left but devastation
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs AccuWeather Connect RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™ Personal Weather Stations
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs AccuWeather Connect RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™ Personal Weather Stations
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
© 2025 AccuWeather, Inc. "AccuWeather" and sun design are registered trademarks of AccuWeather, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | About Your Privacy Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

...

...

...