A week after the floods which left more than 3,000 dead in the town of Derna in Libya, survivors recount the disaster. Among them, Yousif, 11, lost 11 members of his family.
“I woke up on the floor.” Yousif, 11 years old, miraculously survived the floods last week which, according to the latest official report, caused nearly 3,300 deaths in Derna, in the north of Libya. The Libyan Red Crescent, for its part, assured that at least 11,000 people had died in the disaster.
In this city of 100,000 inhabitants bordering the Mediterranean, the floods, caused on September 10 by the rupture of two dams under the pressure of torrential rains dumped by storm Daniel, killed 11 members of his family, his uncle told Sky News .
“The water lifted us up, then crushed us to the ground,” the boy told the British media. “I woke up on the ground, then got up and walked. Later, a police car picked us up. taken to a school.”
According to Sky News, Yousif’s family was swept towards the Mediterranean, and only the boy was washed ashore by the waves. He escaped almost unscathed with a few scratches and a bandage on his right foot.
Having “seen death”
Testimonies like that of Yousif have multiplied in recent days while Derna is still looking for its dead.
“I left the house and I took nothing except my glasses and my cell phone. I went out and the water was shaking the iron doors,” Abdel Moneim Awad Al-Sheikh told AFP, 73 years old.
Mohamad Abdelhafidh, a Lebanese resident of Derna, said he “saw death”. He was sleeping when he felt a “shake”. “I thought it was an earthquake.”
He then asked his sister and father to go down to the street, but from his balcony he discovered that the water had risen to the level of his apartment, on the third floor.
He said he and his family members went to the upper floors where they stayed until the water level receded.
Source: BFM TV
