Libya floods: ‘People were screaming: help, help – it was like a horror movie’

Devastation from floods in Derna have underscored the vulnerability of a highly politically divided Libyan society

Rescuers retrieve the body of a flood victim in Derna, Libya on Wednesday. Search teams are combing streets, wrecked buildings, and even the sea to look for bodies. Photo: IHH humanitarian aid group/AP

Yousef Murad and Jack Jeffery

The wall of water several storeys high smashed into apartment buildings, drowning entire families in minutes.

One man lost at least 13 members of his extended family. Fadellalah has yet to hear about the fate of another 20, several days after two dams burst above the Libyan coastal city of Derna, unleashing epic floods that killed thousands, wiped out neighbourhoods and washed some of the dead into the sea.