Libya hunts for those to blame for thousands of flood deaths

DERNA - The Libyan authorities demanded an investigation on Thursday into whether human failings were to blame for thousands of deaths in the worst natural disaster in the country's modern history, as survivors searched for loved ones washed away by floods.on Sunday night and hurtled down a seasonal riverbed that bisects the eastern city of Derna, washing multi-storey buildings into the sea with sleeping families inside.

"If there would have been a normally operating meteorological service, they could have issued warnings," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalashe said in Geneva."The emergency management authorities would have been able to carry out evacuation of the people. And we could have avoided most of the human casualties."

Mr Usama Al Husadi, a 52-year-old driver, had been searching for his wife and five children since the disaster. "All were swept away by the valley into the sea," he said."May God have mercy upon them and grant them heaven."Rescue teams arrived from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Qatar. Among countries sending aid, Turkey sent a ship carrying equipment to set up two field hospitals. Italy sent three planes of supplies and personnel, as well as two navy ships that had difficulty offloading because Derna's debris-choked port was almost unusable.

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