Although more than a week has passed since Storm “Daniel” hit cities in eastern Libya, the discovery of the storm’s losses and disasters continues to surprise Libyans, including the disappearance of landmarks of a famous village and most of its residents.
Libyans launched a distress call to find out the fate of 500 people living in the village of Al-Wardiya, located 30 kilometers southwest of the city of Al-Bayda, and near a road linking it to the city of Al-Marj.
Picturesque area
The village is located in a picturesque area amidst the forests of the Green Mountain. This made it a favorite place for Libyans in the east of the country, and its pictures are circulating on social media, as explained by the head of the General Federation of Libyan Trade Unions, Nermin Al-Sharif, who has relatives there.
The village is known for selling the finest types of natural honey, yoghurt, natural mountain herbs such as thyme, apple leaves, and other products used in Libyan food. It had famous selling kiosks, and all of this has become a “relic after an eye.”
Search for residents
The floods "swept away people and stones" in the village of Al-Wardiya because they fell directly on the road, according to the testimony of one of the residents, Fawzi Aqila, and the place became deserted after it was bustling with life.
Search efforts are continuing for the families, most of whom have not yet known their fate, as teams from the National Safety Authority and security forces were present in the area, supported by “police dogs,” in an attempt to find any trace.
Infrastructure destruction
The areas south of the city of Al-Bayda are among the most affected by “Daniel.” In addition to the tragedy of the village of Al-Wardiyah, the road network linking “Al-Wadi Al-Ahmar, Al-Khuwaimat, and Silk Bu Askar” was destroyed, making it in need of urgent humanitarian relief.
The Red Crescent Society, as well as the Al-Bayda Municipal Council, intervened to urgently deliver food aid, water, and subsistence materials to those areas, and Egyptian army helicopters participated in transporting this aid, especially with the difficulty of movement on the ground.
In addition to the death of 11,300 people and the loss of more than 10,000, according to statistics from the Red Crescent Society and the United Nations regarding victims of floods from Storm “Daniel,” the head of the emergency room at the Roads and Bridges Authority, Hussein Suwaidan, said that the percentage of damage to the infrastructure in the affected areas is estimated at about 70 percent.
In this regard, Suwaidan spoke about the collapse of 11 bridges as a result of the floods, 2 of which link Derna to the cities of Sousse and Al-Qubba, 6 others inside Derna itself, and 3 bridges on the road extending between Shahat and Sousse.
80 percent of the water ferries collapsed in all cities and villages in the eastern region, and damage to public roads reached 50 percent in the affected areas.
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