UN warns of disease threat in flood-ravaged east Libya

Libya faces second crisis as UN warns of disease outbreaks after devastating flash flood in Derna. Local officials, aid agencies & WHO concerned about risk of disease from contaminated water & lack of sanitation. EU released $5.5M in aid and IOM called for collaboration.

The UN warned on September 18 that disease outbreaks could bring “a second devastating crisis” to Libya a week after a huge flash flood shattered the coastal city of Derna, sweeping thousands to their deaths.

Local officials, aid agencies and the World Health Organization “are concerned about the risk of disease outbreak, particularly from contaminated water and the lack of sanitation”, the United Nations said.

The flash flood that has killed nearly 3,300 people and left thousands more missing came after the war-scarred North African country was lashed by the hurricane-strength Storm Daniel on September 10.

Tens of thousands of traumatised residents are homeless and badly in need of clean water, food and basic supplies amid a growing risk of cholera, diarrhoea, dehydration and malnutrition, UN agencies have warned.

Libya’s disease control centre banned citizens in the disaster zone from drinking water from local mains, warning that it is “polluted”.

Rescue teams from several European and Arab countries kept up the grim search for bodies in the mud-caked wasteland of smashed buildings, crushed cars and uprooted trees.

The waters submerged a densely populated six-square-kilometre (2.3-square-mile) area in Derna, damaging 1,500 buildings of which 891 were totally razed, according to a preliminary report released by the Tripoli government based on satellite images.