‘Unfortunately, it’s no longer’: B.C. man mourns loss of hometown to catastrophic floods in Libya
Abdulrahim Hewaidi is mourning his hometown of Derna, Libya.
On Sunday, two dams burst during a powerful storm, sending floodwaters down a seasonal riverbed that bisects the city, washing buildings into the sea and killing thousands.
As of Thursday evening, the Libyan Red Crescent estimated that 11,300 lives had been lost in the flooding, but Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi suggested deaths could reach up to 20,000.
What was once a densely populated city filled with multi-storey buildings, busy roadways and an active port is now in ruins.
“Unfortunately, it’s no longer,” Hewaidi told B.C. Today host Michelle Eliot on Thursday.
Derna, Libya.<br><br>Before and after the flood <a href=”https://t.co/M8qlqnzUhk”>pic.twitter.com/M8qlqnzUhk</a>
—@MohsenDerregia
Not only has Hewaidi lost his entire hometown, he has also lost friends and family in the disaster.
But the loss of an entire community has been a new kind of grief, he said, because it’s one he’s never felt before.
“Mourning the loss of a town is something that’s extremely painful, it’s a new experience and it’s an overwhelming experience.”
Dr. Abdulrahim Hewaidi, a clinical psychologist who was born and raised in Derna, says he is struggling to come to terms with the extent of its destruction from floods — to which he has lost both family and the town in which he grew up.
Hewaidi, a clinical psychologist who lives in Coquitlam, B.C., was born in Derna in the 1950s. He visited the city last winter, but hasn’t lived there since 1976.
“It’s in my heart and in my mind. I know it street by street.”
The port city, located on the eastern side of Libya and bordering the Mediterranean Sea, was home to about 90,000 people. It straddles a river called Wadi Derna, which is dry much of the year.
“It’s a very, very distinct town,” Hewaidi said. “It’s an ancient town rooted in ancient civilizations.”
Those civilizations, he added, included Roman, Greek and Islamic groups.
He describes the city as a “melting pot that created a unique culture.”
Now, a wide, flat crescent of earth with stretches of mud sits in its place, and nothing but rubble and a washed-out road were left on Thursday at the site of the dam that had once protected the city.
Streets were covered in deep mud, strewn with uprooted trees and hundreds of wrecked cars, many flipped on their sides or roofs, and the beach was littered with clothes, toys, furniture and other possessions swept out of homes.
When he spoke with CBC News, Hewaidi was visiting his daughter in Geneva, Switzerland, but said he plans to go to Libya later this week to help the city recover.
In particular, he said, he hopes to use his skills as a psychologist to help residents overcome the trauma they’ve faced over the past week.
“We will have to find an opportunity for hope.”
