‘An alarm bell’: Libyan poet warned of flood risk in Derna before dying in storms

Officials have said 300 survivors have been rescued. Workers are searching the shoreline for people swept out to sea. Photograph: Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

In Derna, and indeed across Libya, everyone is sharing a poem called The Rain, written by a poet from the city, Mustafa al-Trabelsi, who died in the floods. On 6 September, days before writing the poem, he had attended a meeting at the Derna house of culture to discuss the risk of a flood in the city and the state of the dams.

The poem is short but pertinent. It reads: