Tunisian Flood Disasters In 1973
By Paul Homewood
For those who think it never floods in North Africa, take a look at the Tunisian floods in April 1973, which killed at least 52, with a further 33 missing:
https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/153645/
Below is the Case Report from the US Aid Department:
The terrible disaster led to a major rescue effort by the US Sixth Fleet:
“The Government has not yet fully assessed the extent of the damage to crops, livestock and property, but it is estimated that there have been 86 killed, plus 33 missing, 53,000 people left without shelter and 6,000 houses destroyed or damaged. About 10,000 cattle have been lost, including high‐priced Arabian colts and Dutch cows.
Late March floods struck the most productive agricultural areas of the north and northwest, but they did not damage the country’s principal tourism areas along the coast.
The waters of the Medjerda River, flowing through northwestern Tunisia, rose at one point to 40 feet, flooding wheat fields and gardens.
Tunisia’s appeal for help was promptly answered by her immediate neighbors and the United States Sixth Fleet based in the Mediterranean. American pilots found themselves working side by side with Libyan and Italian crews in rescue operations or in dropping supplies to isolated areas.
President Habib Bourguiba in decorating officers of the rescue missions—among them Rear Adm. Frederick C. Turner and Capt. James B. Linder, commanding officer of the American aircraft carrier Forrestal—paid special tribute to the Sixth Fleet, saying that it “is our shield in the Mediterranean.”
President Bourguiba stressed that America was Tunisia’s “firm friend” and the Sixth Fleet “a friend we can count on in time of need.” Observers were struck by the phrase since Tunisia in the last two years has been vigorously advocating “the Mediterranean for the Mediterraneans” and the exclut sion of foreign fleets from its water.
1,000 Are picked Up
After Tunisia’s call for aid, the Forrestal, the amphibious ship Ponce and the guided missile destroyer Sampson steamed into Tunis Bay within a matter of hours. Aircraft of the rescue force flew more than 100 individual sorties and picked uip more than 1,000 Tunisians from trees, rooftops and flood waters of the Medjerda.
Many thousands received food, water, blankets and medical supplies. Men of the Forrestal baked and donated more than a thousand loaves of bread.”
Later in the same year, more people died in the next Tunisia floods:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
1973. So those floods must have been caused by the ‘accurately predicted’ !!! coming Ice Age.
Some of the money wasted on so called green energy could have been spent on preparations for disaster relief.
Perhaps if Cameron and NATO hadn’t bombed Libya back to the stone age and ushered in Clinton’s ‘we came, we saw, he died…’ era then the dams would have been properly maintained and wouldn’t have collapsed – which is clearly the cause of the worst of the damage and calamity.
2011, a multi-state NATO-led coalition began a military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 (UNSCR 1973) American and with limited British naval forces fired over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles The French Air Force, British Royal Air Force, and Royal Canadian Air Force undertook sorties across Libya. The intervention did not employ foreign ground troops,
The RAF didn’t target infrastructure, residential or commercial areas, they targeted tanks, armoured personnel carriers, gun emplacements and military fuel transport …not back to the stone age
The World Weather Attribution service have already said that climate change made the Libyan floods 50 times worse. Surprise surprise.
I find it interesting that I had never heard of those N. African floods before, if it was reported in the press at the time I don’t remember (and I was in my 20s), whereas now someone only has to sneeze in the Antarctic and everyone and their brother know about it in 5 seconds, and immediately blame it on you know what.
The river valley may be a Wadi. Filled with water only during extreme rainfall amounts. Many wadis occur in dry areas and their shape tells what floods have happened in the Past. I must have learned this in my Geomorphology course at University where we were focussed on the Past of N African Climates. You can learn a lot by looking at landforms.
I learned that aged 11 in secondary school. Strange that….
This is off message but I’d like to find out what’s behind the huge tidal incursions around the South African coast for a very worried SA friend. See photos of Gordonsbaai on the 16th.