Important Takeaways:
- As Storm Daniel pounded the area with torrential rains, dams above the Wadi Derna river valley collapsed, sweeping away entire neighborhoods and the families who lived in them.
- The floods have left thousands dead, missing and displaced.
- 16,000 children are among the displaced and warned that many more lack access to basic services such as health and schooling.
- International and local search and rescue teams and survivors continued the work of recovery
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Important Takeaways:
- Health authorities have been sounding the alarm over the spread of waterborne diseases in the affected areas, particularly in the hard-hit city of Derna.
- Experts have warned that floodwaters have severely contaminated water sources with sewage, rendering them unsafe for consumption and exposing communities to grave health risks.
- The response has ranged from evacuating stranded residents and providing medical aid and essential supplies to securing safe water and sanitation equipment in order to prevent diseases from taking hold.
- Aid groups are also calling people to avoid rushing towards mass burials or carrying out mass cremations
- In a joint statement, the WHO and the ICRC said the bodies of victims of natural disaster “almost never” pose a health danger but also warned that “bodies should not be left in contact with drinking water sources” as they may leak feces that could lead to contamination.
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Important Takeaways:
- The number of people killed by the devastating flash flooding in northern Libya remained unclear Thursday, due to the daunting scale of the catastrophe…but it was undoubtedly well into the thousands.
- An enormous surge of water, brought by torrential downpours from Storm Daniel over the weekend, burst two upstream river dams and reduced the city of Derna to an apocalyptic wasteland where entire blocks and untold numbers of people were washed into the Mediterranean Sea.
- Hundreds of body bags lined its mud-caked streets Thursday, awaiting mass burials, as traumatized and grieving residents search mangled buildings for the missing and bulldozers worked to clear streets.
- More than 3,000 bodies had been buried in Derna alone, while another 2,000 were still being processed. He said most of the dead were buried in mass graves outside the city, while others were transferred to nearby towns and cities.
- An official with the U.N.’s World Health Organization in Libya told the AP the number of fatalities could reach 7,000, given how many people were still missing, adding that “the numbers could surprise and shock all of us.”
- Speaking to the Al Arabia television network, Derna’s Mayor Abdel-Raham al-Ghaithi said the final death toll could even be as high as 20,000.
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Important Takeaways:
- Storm Daniel has wreaked havoc across Libya with 2,000 people feared dead as the devastating floods have broken dams and swept away neighborhoods.
- Worst hit was the city of Derna in eastern Libya, which had become inaccessible, and many of the thousands missing there were believed carried away by waters after two upstream dams burst.
- Ahmed al-Mosmari, a spokesman for the country’s armed forces based in the east, told a news conference that the death toll in Derna had surpassed 2,000. He said there were between 5,000 and 6,000 reported missing.
- Al-Mosmari attributed the catastrophe to the collapse of two nearby dams, causing a lethal flash flood.
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Important Takeaways:
- Morocco earthquake: at least 2,000 dead and thousands more injured
- A powerful earthquake in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains has killed at least 2,000 people, a death toll that is expected to rise as rescuers were struggling on Saturday to reach hard-hit remote areas.
- The magnitude-6.8 quake is the biggest to hit the North African country in 120 years.
- At least 2,012 people died in the quake, mostly in Marrakech and five provinces near the epicenter, Morocco’s interior ministry said. At least another 2,059 people were injured, 1,404 critically, officials said.
- The full toll will almost certainly increase as rescuers have struggled to bypass boulder-strewn roads to the remote mountain villages that were hit hardest.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) said more than 300,000 people had been affected by the powerful tremors throughout the country.
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Important Takeaways:
- As many as 200 people may have been living in the building, witnesses said
- A nighttime fire ripped through a rundown five-story building in Johannesburg that was occupied by homeless people and squatters, leaving at least 73 people dead early Thursday, emergency services in South Africa’s biggest city said.
- A witness said he saw people throwing babies out of the burning building in an attempt to save them and that at least one man died when he jumped from a window on the third floor and hit the concrete sidewalk “head first.”
- Seven of the victims were children, the youngest a 1-year-old, according to an emergency services spokesperson.
- Mulaudzi, the emergency services spokesperson, said the death toll was likely to increase and more bodies were probably trapped inside the building.
- The fire took three hours to contain, he said, and firefighters needed time to work through all five floors.
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Important Takeaways:
- Maui’s death toll reaches 111 as searchers – many coping with their own losses – comb the wildfire zone
- “No one has ever seen this that is alive today – not this size, not this number, not this volume,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said Wednesday. “And we’re not done.”
- A genetics team will help identify remains, “so that we can make sure that we’re finding who our loved ones are, and that we make the notifications with dignity and honor,” Pelletier said, urging patience.
- Searches through the burn areas have expanded over the past week, with 40 canines from 15 states deployed, the Hawaii Department of Defense’s Jeff Hickman told CNN.
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Important Takeaways:
- At least 36 killed on Maui as fires burn through Hawaii and thousands race to escape
- Wildfires fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane killed 36 people and destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings on the Hawaiian island of Maui, in the deadliest blaze in the U.S. in years.
- Firefighters still battled blazes on the island, as local officials prepared to evacuate thousands of visitors and find shelter for residents in need.
- The flames left some people with mere minutes to act and led some to flee into the ocean.
- It is the deadliest fire since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and virtually razed the town of Paradise.
- Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said the island had “been tested like never before in our lifetime.”
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Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Important Takeaways:
- The Florida City and Miami-Dade police departments are actively investigating the shooting
- A Florida suspect opened fire in a Florida City Walmart, hitting two people and killing one.
- The shooting took place at around 3 p.m. Wednesday.
- WSVN reported that two people were shot: one person was reportedly hit in the foot, while another was injured in the abdomen. A third customer had a panic attack from the incident, requiring medical attention.
- The victim who was shot in the abdomen was transported to the hospital via air rescue, but soon passed away. The other victim with non-life-threatening injuries was a customer that got hit by a stray bullet, authorities say. The victim who died was reportedly involved.
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Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still
Important Takeaways:
- Authorities in Kenya have exhumed the bodies of over 400 people that are said to have died in connection with a doomsday cult.
- Officials in the area told the Associated Press (AP) that they believe all of the victims to be followers of a doomsday cult in the coastal town of Malindi led by a local pastor, named Paul Mackenzie, who allegedly ordered them to fast to death in order to meet Jesus.
- An additional 12 bodies were exhumed on Monday, July 17, bringing the total number of those who have died in connection to the Good News International Church to 403.
- An additional 95 followers had been rescued, and detectives are still working to locate more mass graves as some 613 people have been reported missing to Kenya Red Cross officers in Malindi.
- “He [Mackenzie] had an elaborate plan of killing children, youths and then adults, telling them he would be the last one to starve himself to death,”
- Kenya’s president, William Ruto, said what transpired in Malindi was “akin to terrorism” and vowed to crack down on “those using religion to advance their heinous acts.”
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