Libyan Dams Are Not Maintenance Under the Wadi Derna Floods: A State-Dependent Investigation, a Critique
Local officials suggested that the death toll could be much higher than announced. The mayor of Derna told the Al Arabia television station that the total could go as high as 20,000 because of neighborhoods that were washed out.
The flooding exposed vulnerabilities in a country that was mired in conflict since the ousting of long-ruling dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The Wadi Derna is a seasonal river that travels south from the highlands and splits the Mediterranean coastal city into two. The Wadi Derna valley had little to no warning before the floods swept in in the early hours of Monday morning.
The World Meteorological Organization head said they could have issued warnings if there was a normal meteorological service. Emergency management authorities could have saved the lives of the people that were evacuated.
The National Meteorological Center issued warnings 72 hours before the flooding, and all of the governmental authorities were notified by email and media.
Officials in eastern Libya warned the public about the coming storm and on Saturday had ordered residents to evacuate areas along the coast, fearing a surge from the sea. But there was no warning about the dams collapsing.
The startling devastation reflected the storm’s intensity, but also Libya’s vulnerability. In Libya, the oil rich nation has been divided between two governments in the last 10 years, one in the east, and the other in the capital, Tripoli.
The two dams that collapsed outside Derna were built in the 1970s. A report by a state-run audit agency in 2021 said the dams had not been maintained despite the allocation of more than 2 million euros for that purpose in 2012 and 2013.
Libya’s Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah acknowledged the maintenance issues in a Cabinet meeting Thursday and called on the Public Prosecutor to open an urgent investigation into the dams’ collapse.
The Disaster and Floods in the Eastern Libyan City Derna, as Monitored by the Tripoli Department of Health and Humanitary Services
While the Tobruk-based government of east Libya is leading relief efforts, the Tripoli-based western government allocated the equivalent of $412 million for reconstruction in Derna and other eastern towns, and an armed group in Tripoli sent a convoy with humanitarian aid.
More than 3,000 bodies were buried by Thursday morning, the minister said, while another 2,000 were still being processed, He said most of the dead were buried in mass graves outside Derna, while others were transferred to nearby towns and cities.
Up to 13 feet of mud, debris, and concrete can be found under the bodies of sunken cars and chunks of concrete. Rescuers have struggled to bring in heavy equipment as the floods washed out or blocked roads leading to the area.
The storm also killed around 170 people in other parts of eastern Libya, including the towns of Bayda, Susa, Um Razaz and Marj, the health minister said.
84 Egyptians were deported from Libya on Wednesday as a result of the deaths there. More than 70 came from one village in the southern province of Beni Suef. The Libyan media said dozens of Sudanese migrants were killed in the disaster.
The floods have caused the displacement of over 30,000 people in Derna, as well as forcing many others to leave their homes in other eastern towns, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
The flooding damaged or destroyed many access roads, making it difficult for international rescue teams to reach the area. Local authorities were able to clear some routes, and over the past 48 hours humanitarian convoys have been able to enter the city.
An emergency appeal was issued by the UN to respond to urgent needs of hundreds of thousands of Libyans. Almost 900 thousand people live in areas that have been affected by the rain and flooding in five provinces, according to the humanitarian office.
6,000 body bags were given to local authorities, as well as medical, food and other supplies, by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
International aid started to arrive earlier this week in Benghazi, 250 kilometers (150 miles) west of Derna. Several countries have sent aid and rescue teams, including neighboring Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia. Italy dispatched a naval vessel on Thursday carrying humanitarian aid and two navy helicopters to be used for search and rescue operations.
President Joe Biden said the US would send money to relief organizations and coordinate with the United Nations to provide additional support for Libya.
A Libyan flood that killed three people last night: Ehdaa Bujeldain and her family learn about the floods in Derna
It sounded like a bomb going off in the middle of the night when Ehdaa Bujeldain lived in the mountains of eastern Libya with her family.
“On Sunday night, at 3 a.m., me and my family heard something like an explosion,” she tells NPR by phone. “We lost electricity and connection. We did not know what had happened. Then we heard it was a dam in Derna that had collapsed.”
She and her family have been without electricity and internet for four days now, but after a couple of days, they are starting to learn the full extent of this week’s floods.
Tobruk is over 100 miles away from Derna where Nasib Almnsori is from. Three of his cousins were lost in the flood. Other cousins who survived have come to stay with him.
Source: Survivors of Libya’s deadly floods describe catastrophic scenes and tragic losses
“They’ve seen death in their families, and they’ve gone back,” says Griffiths of the Wadi Derna valley floods
“They are ghosts in shells,” he says. They have seen death, not just in their families but within themselves as well. Their hope is gone and their souls are crushed. How can you come back from such a thing? It’s close to annihilation.”
United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths called the scale of the flood “appalling” and said it was a “massive reminder” of the challenges posed by climate change.
The rainfall didn’t seem unusual at first, he says. The seasonal river is created by the Wadi Derna valley filling up with rain every year. Family and friends were sending him videos of the rainwater in the valley on Sunday evening, just as they always have in past years.
The water reached the second floor of his cousin’s house. “He looked outside and saw a lot of water going into the house. He had told the family to go up onto the roof after he woke them up.
The morning after, his brother made a difficult journey from Tobruk to Derna to look for relatives, confronting roads cut off by the floods. A cousin, 37 year-old Khadija, was missing.
“The situation was a disaster,” he says. “People [were] buried under their houses. They did not find her until they found her husband and children, so they just kept looking. They didn’t find her in the house because the flood took her away.”
Source: Survivors of Libya’s deadly floods describe catastrophic scenes and tragic losses
Ibrahim Ozer, a search and rescue worker in Istanbul, the Syrian Red Crescent, recalls a flood the week before the next day
Ibrahim Ozer, with the Turkish Red Crescent organization, was involved in a search and rescue operation earlier in the week. He described the difficulty of transporting and delivering aid across a city split in half.
“There is one river that connects east to west, all the bridges collapsed, and there is no way to get from one side to the other,” he says. “It’s not a regular flood — it’s like a storm, a flood and an earthquake.”
“One catastrophe is done and there is another to come,” he says. Thousands and thousands of people lost their homes, their jobs, and they need jobs and psychological support.