World
Catastrophic Libya flood kills thousands, desperate relatives search for survivors
Residents of the devastated Libyan city of Derna desperately searched for missing relatives on Wednesday and rescue workers appealed for more body bags, after a catastrophic flood that killed thousands of people and swept many out to sea, Reuters reported.
Swathes of the Mediterranean city were obliterated by a torrent of water unleashed by a powerful storm that swept down a usually dry riverbed on Sunday night, bursting dams above the city. Multi-storey buildings collapsed with sleeping families inside.
Officials have put the number of missing at 10,000. The U.N. aid agency OCHA said the figure was at least 5,000.
Usama Al Husadi, a 52-year-old driver, has been searching for his wife and five children since the disaster. “I went by foot searching for them … I went to all hospitals and schools but no luck,” he told Reuters, weeping with his head in his hands.
Husadi, who had been working the night of the storm, dialled his wife’s phone number once again. It was switched off. “We lost at least 50 members from my father’s family, between missing and dead,” he said.
The beach was littered with clothes, toys, furniture, shoes and other possessions swept out of homes by the torrent, read the report.
Streets were covered in deep mud and strewn with uprooted trees and hundreds of wrecked cars, many flipped on their sides or their roofs. One car was wedged on the second-floor balcony of a gutted building.
“I survived with my wife but I lost my sister,” Mohamed Mohsen Bujmila, a 41-year-old engineer, said. “My sister lives downtown where most of the destruction happened. We found the bodies of her husband and son and buried them.”
He also found the bodies of two strangers in his apartment.
As he spoke an Egyptian search-and-rescue team nearby recovered the body of his neighbour. “This is Aunt Khadija, may God grant her heaven,” Bujmila said.
The devastation is clear from high points above Derna, where the densely populated city centre, built along a seasonal riverbed, was now a wide, flat crescent of earth with stretches of muddy water gleaming in the sun. Buildings were swept away.
Death tolls given by officials so far have varied, but all are in the thousands.
Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation in the administration that runs eastern Libya, told Reuters more than 5,300 dead had been counted so far, and said the number was likely to increase significantly and might even double. The “sea is constantly dumping dozens of bodies”, he said by phone.
Tariq Kharaz, a spokesperson for the eastern authorities, said 3,200 bodies had been recovered, and 1,100 of them had yet to be identified.
Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television the estimated the number of deaths in the city could reach 18,000 to 20,000 based on the number of districts destroyed by the flood.
Rescue teams have arrived from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Qatar, al-Ghaithi said.
“We actually need teams specialised in recovering bodies,” he said. “I fear that the city will be infected with an epidemic due to the large number of bodies under the rubble and in the water.”
Turkey is also sending a ship carrying equipment to set up two field hospitals and 148 medical staff to help with the rescue efforts, Reuters reported.
The U.N. migration agency, the International Organization for Migration, said at least 30,000 people had been displaced in Derna.
“We need bags for the bodies,” Lutfi al-Misrati, the director of the search team, told Al Jazeera.
Rescue operations are complicated by deep political fractures in the country of 7 million people that has lacked a strong central government and been at war on-and-off since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
An internationally recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) is based in Tripoli, in the west, while a parallel administration operates in the east, including Derna.
Libya’s Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah called the floods an unprecedented catastrophe. Libya’s Presidential Council head Mohammed al-Menfi has called for national unity.
The bodies of dozens of Egyptian migrants who were among the victims of the storm in Libya arrived on Wednesday in Beni Suef, about 110km (68 miles) south of Cairo, Egyptian media reported.
World
US military operations killed 153 civilians in 2025, Pentagon assessment shows
A Pentagon report submitted to the U.S. Congress and published by U.S. media said all civilian deaths and injuries recorded in 2025 resulted from three U.S. strikes in Yemen.
U.S. military operations killed 153 civilians and wounded 243 others in 2025, a U.S. official said on Tuesday, citing Pentagon assessments.
According to Reuters, the figures represent a sharp increase from 2024, when Pentagon assessments recorded two civilian deaths and two injuries linked to U.S. military operations.
A Pentagon report submitted to the U.S. Congress and published by U.S. media said all civilian deaths and injuries recorded in 2025 resulted from three U.S. strikes in Yemen.
The report said the U.S. Central Command assessed that the three strikes carried out in April 2025 in Yemen “more likely than not” resulted in civilian harm.
As of February 2026, the report said, 15 other incidents in Yemen were still being assessed by U.S. Central Command following reports received through non-governmental organizations.
The U.S. military says its operations in Yemen aim to degrade the capabilities of Iran-backed Houthi militants.
The Pentagon report did not include casualties from U.S. strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. It said that as of February 1, 2026, the U.S. Southern Command had assessed that no incidents in its area of responsibility in 2025 “more likely than not” resulted in civilian casualties.
The Trump administration has also carried out strikes on vessels it accuses of transporting narcotics in the Eastern Pacific, describing the targets as “narco-terrorists.” According to a Reuters tally based on death tolls published after each strike, more than 200 people have been killed in such operations since September 2025.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have described the strikes as unlawful extrajudicial killings, while the American Civil Liberties Union has called the Trump administration’s claims about those targeted “unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims.”
World
Trump took secret flight out of Turkey due to Iran threat, the Washington Post reports
The trip to NATO was the first international travel for the new plane, whose speedy upgrades triggered questions over its cost and security, and took place as hostilities escalated with Iran, which borders Turkey.
U.S. President Donald Trump departed on a secret military flight from Turkey last month when the White House said he was flying aboard Air Force One, an extraordinary move prompted by an Iranian assassination threat, the Washington Post reported Monday.
Trump had taken the newly renovated Qatari-donated jet to Ankara for the NATO summit but he unexpectedly used an older Air Force One when departing the country, a move that prompted questions about the newer plane’s security, Reuters reported.
The trip to NATO was the first international travel for the new plane, whose speedy upgrades triggered questions over its cost and security, and took place as hostilities escalated with Iran, which borders Turkey.
Before departing Ankara, Trump said on Truth Social that he would use an older baby blue Air Force One plane “for old time’s sake” to RAF Mildenhall in Britain while the new plane stopped at the same base so U.S. service members stationed there could tour the aircraft.
After Trump boarded the old Air Force One in front of cameras in Ankara, he was secretly shuttled by an airport catering truck to a smaller plane, an Air Force C-32A, the Post reported citing a U.S. official familiar with the operation and corroborating material it reviewed.
The deception operation was triggered by a credible threat to Trump, the Post reported. A similar operation had taken place in 2000, when President Bill Clinton used an unmarked executive jet to fly into Pakistan while sending his formal Air Force One as decoy.
On this occasion, the journalists who thought they were traveling with Trump on the older Air Force One, which was effectively used as a decoy, reported being advised to keep their window shades in the press cabin closed. The Post said aside from reporters, some White House staff also believed that the president was on board.
When asked later by reporters why they had to keep their shades shut during the flight, Trump said it was because they were “probably on a dangerous flight.” He went onto say: “But if I go, you go. Right?”
The C-32A carrying Trump flew to Britain and arrived at around 10:20 p.m. while the older Air Force One and media, arriving minutes later, the Post reported. It was not clear, the paper said, how Trump was moved from the C-32A back to the older Air Force One.
Trump’s traveling press pool reported he climbed down the stairs of the older Air Force One at 10:56 p.m. UK local time.
He gave press a peace sign but didn’t walk over to talk to them. He then spent some time greeting service members before walking to the new, Qatar-donated plane.
When asked for comment on the revelation of a secret flight on a third plane, the White House provided a statement from Communications Director Steve Cheung saying the Qatari-donated jet has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the president and his staff.
“As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats,” Cheung said. It was the same statement provided to the Post.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The new plane, with red, white, dark blue and gold livery chosen by Trump, is a Boeing 747 gifted to the United States by Qatar last year and refitted by defense contractor L3Harris Technologies. It was intended to serve as a temporary placement while Boeing (BA.N) struggled to deliver long-delayed next-generation Air Force One planes.
World
More than 100 killed after strongest quake this century hits western Colombia
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.4-magnitude quake struck at a depth of 107 km (66 miles). Colombia’s Geological Service said it was the strongest earthquake recorded in the country in the 21st century.
More than 100 people were killed after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, toppling buildings, damaging hospitals and infrastructure and trapping people beneath the rubble in the country’s strongest earthquake this century.
The quake struck just days after Abelardo De La Espriella was sworn in as president, thrusting the new administration into its first major crisis, with memories still fresh of devastating twin earthquakes in neighboring Venezuela in June, Reuters reported.
“The national government has all of its capabilities deployed to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed,” he said in a national address around 1 p.m. local time, upon declaring a national state of emergency and giving a death toll of 111. “The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble.”
De La Espriella visited Quibdo, the capital of coastal Choco province, where he promised rent subsidies for those who have lost homes, and then traveled to Cali, western Colombia’s largest city.
Though he had been expected to give an updated national death toll on Monday evening, De La Espriella offered only figures for Valle del Cauca province, where Cali is located, saying 35 people had died there, while 700 had been injured. Some local media have cited a national total of 132 deaths, though the origin of the figure is unclear.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.4-magnitude quake struck at a depth of 107 km (66 miles). Colombia’s Geological Service said it was the strongest earthquake recorded in the country in the 21st century.
As night fell, rescue workers and volunteers with headlamps hurried to find people still trapped under rubble.
Authorities in Cali, Armenia and Manizales announced curfews, with Cali’s mayor saying threats of looting had forced him to deploy police and military personnel to the streets. De La Espriella promised 1,000 additional security personnel for the city.
Cali authorities said the Petronio Alvarez festival, an annual celebration of Pacific music which was due to start on Wednesday, has been postponed.
Video broadcast by Caracol Television showed a group of people pulling a small baby covered in dust from under a pile of rubble. Caracol reported the six-month-old girl and her mother were rescued from under a five-story building in Cali.
Video from Cali also showed rescue workers rappelling people out from the windows of a local hospital.
BUILDINGS CRUMBLE, AIRPORTS CLOSED
In the hard-hit city of Pereira, rescue workers told local television they were in contact with a young boy trapped under a bakery, and crane operators were working to remove badly damaged parts of buildings.
A four-story building crumbled in Pereira during the quake, according to Reuters-verified video, while footage from Manizales showed one of the side towers of the city’s landmark neo-Gothic cathedral collapsing and scattering debris onto nearby streets.
Reuters video showed rescue workers, police and volunteers shoveling debris by hand and loading rubble into trucks as they searched for survivors trapped beneath collapsed buildings. Other footage showed damage to residential towers and emergency-service facilities, with debris crashing onto ambulances parked below.
Mauricio Andrade, a firefighter in Cali, said his team had rescued two adult women and two children from a collapsed building. As he spoke to Reuters, his team was preparing to rescue more people from the rubble.
“They are alive,” he said. “We are making space so we can free them and get them out.”
Carmen Yasmin Garcia, 43, a Cali resident and rescue volunteer, said her group had helped seven people out of a fallen building but there were still four people and a dog trapped underneath.
“A moment ago there was scratching but now we can’t hear anything, we still have faith that the dog is alive and we can get these people out,” she said. “The more people lending a hand the better.”
Saul Paz, 69, a resident of a Cali residential complex that partially collapsed, told Reuters he had been in the dining room with his son and wife when the shaking began.
“I think if it had lasted five seconds more there would be nothing left,” he said. “There are people who went to bed last night with a house and a car and today they won’t have anything.”
Colombia’s civil aviation authority suspended operations at several airports in the region, including Pereira, Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura, while engineers carried out structural inspections.
RING OF FIRE
Colombia sits along the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire and records thousands of mostly minor earthquakes each month.
Northwestern University seismologist Suzan van der Lee said the quake’s powerful magnitude, inland location and strike-slip motion may have amplified damage in populated valleys despite its considerable depth.
“This one was far below the crust, and in theory it shouldn’t cause as much shaking. At this magnitude, it did actually cause a lot of shaking,” she said, adding Colombia is particularly difficult for seismologists to analyze due to the interaction of several major tectonic plates.
The Colombian Geological Service said it had recorded 21 aftershocks by late Monday and warned that additional tremors were likely.
Colombia’s coffee region was devastated by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 1,000 people, particularly around Armenia and Pereira.
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