Libya floods: The horrifying moment a girl’s body was found in a city facing a truly awful aftermath
The centre of the eastern Libyan city of Derna is like one big graveyard – a mass of flattened buildings, wrecked lives and upended vehicles amid torn trees.
Huge nine-storey buildings have been ripped off their foundations and smothered by volumes of mud.
From where I stood, I could see at least three huge bridges in the city centre were levelled.
As we walked through the mountains of rubble, boulders and rocks, we had to keep reminding ourselves these were once people’s homes, this was once a street packed with shops and malls. Even the road was non-existent.
Desperate search for survivors continues – latest updates
A few hours after daybreak there were small groups of civilians, some with just pickaxes, trampling over the boulders and rubble left in the centre in the wake of Storm Daniel.
They told us they travelled from Tobruk, Misrata and Benghazi to help in what must be a truly awful task.
Six days on, they were among several small groups setting out to try to locate their missing relatives who are included in the more than 10,000 still unaccounted for.
There were a few groups of soldiers, too – as well as pockets of health workers dressed in blue hospital gowns and wearing masks to save them from the stench of death that hung over this whole area.
Entire buildings had been moved by the floodwater
The steaming heat has meant the corpses they found were putrid after nearly a week of decomposing.
They carried body bags.
Few here still held out hope of finding anyone alive.
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Before and after pictures show devastation
What caused the sheer scale of destruction?
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How the flooding cut through the city
Mediterranean turned a murky brown by ugly leftovers of tragedy
There was a lot of activity down at the port in Derna.
The normally blue Mediterranean sea had turned a murky brown.
There were clusters of relief workers gathered around watching a digger tear into the mountains of flotsam at the water’s edge.
Among the debris were upside-down smashed-up cars in different twisted states.
They looked as if some angry giant toddler had thrown them all there in a childish rage.
Streets were strewn with mud and cars
We watched as the metal bucket of the digger sifted through the ugly leftovers of this tragedy.
The sea was covered in a blanket of chipped wood, broken-off metal, bits of wardrobe, and folded sodden mattresses.
Much of the debris bears no resemblance at all to its original state.
The digger operator was methodically trying to toss this all to one side as he looked for bodies.
There were divers on dinghies bobbing up and down on the waves who were also scouring the water.
Further out, an Italian naval ship was positioned off the coast. It had been helping recover those washed out to sea as the water smashed its way down Derna’s valley.
Stunned silence as body of young girl recovered from water
As various relief workers hung off the side of his cab and stood like sentinels on the back of the metal casing, the scoop was suddenly filled with the unmistakable shape of a small human.
There was a collective intake of horror as the momentum of the machine caused two thin legs to flop over the teeth of the digger’s scoop for a brief yet completely horrifying few seconds before falling back in.
It was the corpse of a young child – maybe 10 or 11.
Everyone witnessing this truly awful scene was stunned into silence.
It was entirely and utterly dreadful.
Rescue workers pull the body of a child out of the sea
Two relief workers raced down carrying a black body bag and the child – who looked like a girl – was hurriedly tucked into it.
They raced back up the hill to deposit the body into the back of an ambulance.
It was not clear why they were scrambling but it crossed my mind they might just be saving those looking on from further trauma after a monumentally traumatic six days.
It’s estimated more than 10,000 are still unaccounted for – there is so much trauma yet to come.
Men pray between digging
A Libyan soldier inspects a destroyed flat
‘They should have known’
A structural engineer told Sky News the catastrophic disaster was down to negligence.
“They should have known,” Gandi Mohammed Hammoud told us.
He said he watched as his neighbours and friends screamed in terror as the torrent of water tore apart their homes and flats.
“Then it went silent – which means they died,” he told us. “We saw some friends literally being swept away in front of us.”
Structural engineer Gandi Mohammed Hammoud
Mr Hammoud said there’d been plenty of warnings from engineers about the poor state of the city’s two dams and how several more needed to be built to halt the water caused by increasingly heavy yearly rainfall.
“Nothing has been done since 2008 and after the revolution to strengthen the two dams,” he told us.
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The instability, poor governance, corruption and mafia-style politicking here – including a network of people-smuggling gangs – have all conspired to make this tragedy possible.
Many Libyans believe the bombing during the NATO-backed military campaign to oust Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi also weakened the structures.
“Someone should pay for these deaths,” Mr Hammoud said. “Someone should be held accountable for what happened here.”
Just 36 aid trucks entered Gaza on Saturday – despite the humanitarian situation in the enclave worsening, Palestinian officials have warned.
According to the Gazan government’s media office, most of the humanitarian supplies were looted and stolen – “as a result of the state of security chaos that the Israeli occupation systematically and deliberately perpetuates”.
Officials say at least 600 truckloads of aid are required on a daily basis, adding: “The needs of the population are worsening.”
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Gaza nurse: ‘We’re rationing care’
A statement released late last night called for “the immediate opening of crossings, and the entry of aid and infant formula in sufficient quantities” – and “condemned in the strongest terms the continuation of the crime of starvation”.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuted this – and accused Hamas of “stirring up a slanderous propaganda campaign against Israel”.
He said: “The cruelty of Hamas has no boundaries. While the State of Israel is allowing the entry of humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, the terrorists of Hamas are deliberately starving our hostages and document them in a cynical and evil manner.
“The terrorists of Hamas are deliberately starving the residents of the Strip as well, preventing them from receiving the aid.”
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Aid drops continue over Gaza
It comes as the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza said its headquarters in Khan Younis were hit by an Israeli strike, killing one staff member and injuring three others.
Footage posted on social media shows a fire broke out in the building.
Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel for a 60-day ceasefire, and a deal for the release of half the hostages still held in Gaza, ended in deadlock last week.
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy told the families of the hostages yesterday that he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would end the war.
Steve Witkoff arrives to meet families of hostages in Tel Aviv. Pic: AP
Steve Witkoff claimed that Hamas was willing to disarm to stop the conflict, despite the group’s repeated statements that it would not do so.
In response, Hamas said it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital.
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After Mr Witkoff’s meeting with the families of the hostages, Hamas released two videos of an emaciated Israeli hostage, Evyatar David, who was abducted from the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023 and has been held in captivity in Gaza since.
The 24-year-old looked skeletal, with his shoulder blades protruding from his back. He was heard saying that he had not eaten for three days. The distressing videos show him digging his own grave, he said in the footage.
Two videos of an emaciated Israeli hostage, Evyatar David, have been released by Hamas, after US special envoy Steve Witkoff this week met with the families of the hostages.
The now 24-year-old looks skeletal, with his shoulder blades protruding from his back, and says he has not eaten for three days.
The distressing videos show him apparently digging his own grave.
He worked in a restaurant, according to a video posted by Labour Friends of Israel, before he was abducted from the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023.
Since then, he has been held in captivity in Gaza, and the videos suggest he is being kept in dark tunnels and surviving on scarce portions of lentils and beans.
Gaza itself is suffering “man-made mass starvation” because of Israel’s blockade on aid to the enclave, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has previously said.
Evyatar David before he was captured by Hamas. Pic: Hostages and Missing Families Forum
In the video, Evyatar David writes on a hand-made calendar on the wall of a tunnel
In the second video, released on Saturday, Mr David – according to the English subtitles – says: “I haven’t eaten for three days.”
The captions continue as he speaks while in an underground tunnel: “There’s no [sic] enough food. I barely get drinking water.”
The video shows him talking through what he ate in July, which has been recorded on a handmade calendar hung up on the side of an underground Gaza tunnel.
Speaking while under captivity and under duress, he adds: “They give me what they can get.”
At the end of the video, he is digging a hole. The subtitle reads: “This is the grave where I think I’m going to be buried in. Time is running out.”
He then appears to break down, crouching on the floor and leaning his head on his arm while still clinging to the shovel.
A poster released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum with photos of Evyatar David released in 2023, February this year and July
In a statement, his family said: “We are forced to witness our beloved son and brother, Evyatar David, deliberately and cynically starved in Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza – a living skeleton, buried alive.
“Our son has only a few days left to live in his current condition.”
They added: “Israel and the international community must oppose Hamas’s cruelty and ensure that our Evyatar immediately receives proper nutrition.
“The intentional starvation, torture, and abuse of Evyatar for propaganda purposes violate even the lowest standards of humanitarian law and basic human decency.”
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Gaza nurse: ‘We’re rationing care’
‘Famine’ looms in Gaza
On Friday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff visited a site where the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been distributing food in Gaza.
Read more: ‘Little confidence’ US Gaza delegation would see full picture
The controversial GHF scheme has been widely condemned, including by the UK government, after fatal shootings ever since it was set up earlier this year.
According to the United Nations’ human rights office, at least 859 people have been killed “in the vicinity” of GHF aid sites since late May.
The Israel Defence Forces has repeatedly said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians” and has blamed Hamas militants for fomenting chaos and endangering civilians.
Meanwhile, the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IFSPC) this week said a “worst-case scenario of famine” was sinking in across the besieged enclave.
It has also said more than 20,000 children have been treated for acute malnutrition since April.
Families of the 50 hostages still in Gaza are concerned they are also starving, and blame Hamas.
On Saturday, Gaza’s health ministry said a further seven Palestinians had died of malnutrition-related causes in the past 24 hours, including a child.
Rescue crews searching for five trapped Chilean miners have discovered a body.
A section of the copper mine had collapsed on Thursday following a strong, 4.2-magnitude tremor.
The remaining four miners are still missing – and rescuers are vowing to continue their search with “strength and hope”.
A man reacts during a vigil at an entrance to El Teniente mine complex. Pic: Reuters/Pablo Sanhueza
Andres Music, general manager of El Teniente mine, said: “This discovery fills us with sadness, but it also tells us that we are in the right place, that the strategy we followed led us to them.”
Crews are trying to drill through 90m (295ft) of rock to reach the trapped miners, but Mr Music said they had not yet made contact with the workers.
Just over a fifth of the blocked underground tunnels have been cleared, with teams hoping to get through about 15m to 20m (49ft to 66ft) every 24 hours using heavy machinery.
He said rescue efforts would continue with increased caution, which could slow progress.
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Two people are now known to have died as a result of the collapse.
Another miner, Paulo Marin Tapia, was found dead on Thursday shortly after the incident.
Codelco, which owns the mine, said the identity of the second man is yet to be confirmed.
Nine other miners were injured.
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