An intense storm caused devastating floods in Libya on September 10. As rescue workers rushed to help the North African nation, experts said it was the deadliest storm in Africa since 1900.
What happened?
The disaster began with Storm Daniel, which formed over the Mediterranean Sea in the days before the flood. This storm, called a “medicane,” was like a hurricane, with heavy rains and high winds. Daniel unleashed record-breaking rainfall in Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria, then moved to Libya’s coast. There, rain overwhelmed two dams near the city of Derna. (A dam is a structure built across a waterway to control the flow of water.) The dams could not contain all the rain and collapsed, sending a massive flood across the city of about 100,000 people.
What was the…
