Whole families drowned in a Libyan city’s flood. The only warning was the sound of the dams bursting

BY YOUSEF MURAD AND JACK JEFFERY

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

One man, Fadellalah, believes 13 members of his extended family died. He’s 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 wiped out neighborhoods and sent some of the dead into sea.

Thousands of others like him are frantically trying to find out who survived the rain-swollen rampage.

As a powerful storm bore down on his hometown, Fadellalah, an information technology worker in Libya’s capital of Tripoli, called his family Sunday to urge them to move to higher ground.

“No one expected this,” said Fadelallah, who asked that his surname not be used because he fears reprisal from government officials and armed groups who could view his story as criticism of