Al-Mismari added in a press conference in Benghazi that the army leadership held a meeting on Saturday before the disaster occurred, and issued decisions to raise the level of preparedness and readiness to provide humanitarian services to citizens in the event of an emergency. An emergency committee was also formed in cooperation with the Libyan government emanating from Parliament.
He said that the army’s focus was initially on Benghazi, because the available information indicated that the storm would hit it first.
He added that the degree of preparedness there had been raised, but the storm that swept Benghazi was at a speed of 70-80 kilometers per hour, but no damage occurred in Benghazi.
An area made non-existent by the storm
When the storm moved to other areas in Al Jabal Al Akhdar, heavy rain fell gradually.
He pointed to the small area of Al-Wardiyah, famous for its honey, being razed to the ground in Libya, and said that it no longer exists completely, while the Al-Bayada area witnessed the drowning of all the houses.
He said that there were areas in Jabal Al Akhdar that were completely destroyed by floods, and he considered that “what happened was unprecedented in the history of Libya.”
He added that all main and secondary roads in the Jabal Al Akhdar area have been completely cut off.
He said that what exacerbated the disaster was that the valleys flowed from south to north towards the sea, and the main roads mostly passed from west to east, and thus the water became blocking these roads as it flowed.
He added that hundreds of kilometers of roads need to be repaired after the Daniel disaster.
He pointed out that several areas in Jabal Al Akhdar have become separated from others due to floods that submerged the roads and have become self-reliant.
He added that communications were also cut off, and the army lost contact with a number of soldiers, noting that about 800 soldiers were lost in the Derna region.
The disaster in Derna
He said that the storm intensified in the Al-Bayda area near Derna, where things became very difficult, and then it reached Derna.
He added that Derna is located in a narrow coastal strip, and is divided by a valley that contributed to exacerbating the disaster.
He said that the first dam is 13 kilometers from Derna, while the second is only one kilometer from the city.
He pointed out that the means of protection in one of the two dams were very modest, and after the first dam collapsed, which was far from the city, water flowed into the second dam and then swept the city across the valley, leading to the disaster.
1.2 million affected
He said that the Green Mountain region is agricultural, touristic, archaeological, and densely populated, pointing to 900,000 people registered in the region’s civil registry.
He added that there is another segment of Libyans registered in other regions but residing in Jabal Akhdar, such as displaced persons, students, and Libyans who came for internal tourism.
He pointed to a third category that includes resident Arab and African communities: the Syrian community comes first, then the Palestinian community and the Egyptian community, in addition to African workers from countries such as Chad.
Therefore, there are more than one million and 200 thousand people living in this region.
Arab support
Al-Mismari said: “We received grateful support from Egypt, the Emirates, Algeria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and all brotherly and friendly countries.”
He added: “Unified Arab humanitarian action in Libya has made all differences disappear.”
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