Catastrophic flooding earlier this week in Libya killed at least 10,000 people, with more than 30,000 people displaced, after Storm Daniel pummeled the coast and two dams broke in quick succession.
Nearly a quarter of Derna, a coastal city in the eastern corner of Libya, was destroyed in the flooding, with entire blocks of buildings now missing and washed out to sea.
Death counts range, reaching estimates as high as 20,000, a number that came from the mayor of Derna. The Libyan Red Crescent put the number slightly lower at more than 11,000, as reported by the Associated Press.
Tropical storms or hurricanes in the Mediterranean are often referred to as “medicanes,” and while these weather events don’t reach speeds fast enough to qualify as official hurricanes, they can be quite destructive. Storms like Daniel are considered rare, and…