Sand Collapse Buries Displaced Families' Tents in Deir al-Balah, Gaza: Five Killed, Including Three Children
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Gaza's Civil Defence said on the evening of November 8 that a mass of sand collapsed onto tents at a displacement shelter site in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Rescuers recovered five bodies, six people were injured, and searches continued for a child still missing.
Medical sources said the five killed included one woman and three children, and that some of the injured were in serious condition. Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal said the collapse consisted of sand and rocks washed down by days of rain. The tents housed families displaced from northern Gaza.
The deaths came as a winter storm battered Gaza. Heavy rain and strong winds that began on the evening of November 6 flooded about 70,000 displacement tents within roughly 12 hours, according to Gaza's Government Media Office, and brought down dozens of walls, injuring several people.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had warned a day earlier that displaced families living in flood-prone areas and damaged buildings face heightened risks in the rainy season. Rawhi Fattouh, president of the Palestinian National Council, called on November 7 for urgent international action to provide temporary housing, tents and heating supplies for the displaced.
(Source: Gaza Civil Defence)
Source: Gaza Civil Defence
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：加沙地带代尔拜莱赫流离失所者的帐篷被洪水浸泡（资料图）。Ashraf Amra 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Flooded tents of displaced Palestinians in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip (file photo). By Ashraf Amra, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, via Wikimedia Commons.
