Recovery efforts in Libya’s flood-devastated city of Derna have been seriously hampered after critical communications in the area were cut, triggering a local investigation. When communications were interrupted on Tuesday, there was speculation that authorities had cut internet and phone lines to stem growing protests. Angry protestersHealth authorities have launched a vaccination campaign that initially targeted search and rescue teams and children in Derna and other impacted areas. The protesters demanded an investigation into the disaster to be accelerated and called for the reconstruction of Derna to be under UN supervision. General prosecutor Al Sidiq Al Sour has launched an investigation into the collapse of the two dams in Derna.

DERNA, Libya – Brigadier General Saddam Khalifa has assumed a leading role coordinating humanitarian aid in Derna following devastating floods on September 11th. General Khalifa was appointed to head the newly established Disaster Response Committee after the crisis began unfolding. According to sources, General Khalifa instituted evacuation protocols prior to the worst flooding. Representatives from NGOs and agencies involved in the humanitarian response say General Khalifa has actively participated in relief planning and logistics meetings. With General Khalifa now guiding relief efforts, the international community continues working closely with him to address immense humanitarian needs still unfolding.

Thousands of people were killed last week when devastating floods caused by Storm Daniel’s heavy rainfall hit Libya, a failed state that is still recovering from years of civil war. Record rainfall was recorded in the hours leading up to the floods on Sept. 10, with winds reaching 80 mph in some parts of the country. For many, this was just another downpour, but for the 90,000 residents of the Mediterranean port city of Derna, it became a catastrophe they had to fend off by themselves. Two poorly maintained dams in the outskirts of the city failed, sending millions of cubic meters of floodwater all through downtown and washing entire neighborhoods into the sea. Here’s how unusually heavy rainfall destroyed the city.

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today... Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today... ---Unifor reaches tentative deal with FordUnifor says it has reached a tentative deal with Ford Motor Co. that could avoid workers going on strike. The tentative deal with Ford comes as U.S. autoworkers continue to strike against Ford as well as at General Motors and Stellantis plants. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 20, 2023The Canadian Press

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Last week's floods in Libya, which killed thousands of people, were made all the worse by climate change, according to a new study from World Weather Attribution. The death toll in Libya has soared into the thousands, though the United Nations has revised its confirmed totals downward as reporting from on the ground remains difficult. The researchers found that the storm, which also caused days of flooding in Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, and Turkey before hitting Libya, was made substantially more likely in the warmer world. In Libya, the difference was more stark: the storm was 50 times more likely than in a cooler climate, and it was 50% more intense. A warmer atmosphere is capable of holding more moisture, so extreme rain is becoming increasingly frequent as the climate changes.

The U.S. Embassy in Libya clarified the contents of a message delivered by U.S. Africa Command leader General Michael Langely and U.S. Special Envoy to Libya Richard Norland to Libyan political leaders. General Langley and Ambassador Norland arrived in Tripoli earlier today and met with Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah at the Ministry of Defense, alongside Chief of Staff Muhammad Al-Haddad. The meetings are part of a series the U.S. delegation will hold with military and political officials. Other topics included border security, counterterrorism, regional security developments, and their impact on Libya’s stability. The U.S. is concerned about Wagner’s growing presence in Africa, where it operates in at least six countries.

LibyaUN teams on the ground in Libya continue to deliver life-saving assistance in the most affected areas, despite access challenges. The World Food Programme is ramping up its emergency response, with local partners, reaching more than 9,000 affected people with food assistance. SudanThe deadly conflict in Sudan took centre stage today at a high-level event on the sidelines of the General Assembly in New York. Millions of people – especially in Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofan – lack access to food, water, shelter, electricity, education and health care. Children need urgent assistance.

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AdvertisementReporters for Arabic-language channels said authorities told journalists on Monday night they must leave the city entirely by Tuesday. A reporter from al-Hurra said they were told to leave by 8 a.m. Tuesday, and Al Jazeera said it received a 1 p.m. deadline. After Morocco turned down aid offers following this month’s earthquake, analysts said that international scrutiny was a source of anxiety for the state. Derna is in the territory controlled by Khalifa Hifter, who rules the country’s east as the head of Libyan National Army. Local government officials had been calling for an evacuation for days, citing health concerns from the estimated thousands of bodies still to be retrieved.

But they also spotted looters looking for cash and gold. “What we saw was total chaos and panic in the initial hours on Monday morning once the storm had calmed down. But I also saw looters lurking inside people’s homes trying to steal the dead’s belongings." LNA soldiers sent to help in the aftermath of the fatal flash floods in Derna take a breather. "They initially said they were there help in the rescue operations but we saw them leaving with gold and cash," he added.

Death tolls from the flood have ranged from 4,000 to more than 11,000, and survivors have shown concern over disorganized rescue efforts and uneven aid distribution. The burst dams had been visibly cracked since 1998, and angered flood survivors have called into question Libyan leaders’ negligence towards protecting their infrastructure. Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation, told Reuters that journalist expulsions were carried out in an effort to help rescue teams. “It is an attempt to create better conditions for the rescue teams to carry out the work more smoothly and effectively,” Chkiouat said. The U.N. has sent search and rescue teams into the city which are still operating, yet an additional team from Benghazi was blocked.

Mike SzydlowskiColumbia Daily TribuneA horrible storm system, called a medicane, hit Libya recently and the associated floods killed as many as 20,000 people in a single day. Even the fiercest hurricanes traditionally only claim a very small fraction of the victims that Libya saw during this storm. It directly borders the Mediterranean Sea but, due to geographic and atmospheric patterns, receives relatively little rainfall and is considered a hot and arid climate. Far different than the 10,000-20,000 people who died in the Libya medicane. If a similar storm hit the neighboring country, Egypt, the death toll would have most certainly been far less.

The prime minister of Libyan's eastern administration says authorities have divided the flood-stricken city of Derna into four sections to create buffers in case of disease outbreaks. Tuesday's announcement comes a day after protesters demanded the city's rapid reconstruction. The United Nations has warned that a disease outbreak could create "a second devastating crisis." Government officials and aid agencies have given death tolls for the disaster ranging from about 4,000 to 11,000. The recovery operation has been poorly coordinated, and residents say aid distribution has been uneven.

The devastating storm that dumped torrential rains along the Libyan coast this month was up to 50 times more likely to occur and 50% more intense because of human-caused climate change, according to an analysis released Tuesday. The analysis was conducted by the World Weather Attribution group, which aims to quickly evaluate the possible role of climate change in extreme weather events. What’s more, the dams might not have been designed to withstand such an extreme rainfall in the first place, they say. To assess the role of climate change, researchers then combined observations of rainfall and climate models to determine if there had been changes in the likelihood and intensity of those maximum rainfalls. “For this reason, my belief is that these attribution studies actually underestimate the impact human-caused climate change is having on these events,” Mann said in an email.