Cyclone Daniel, a climate change phenomenon, is not the only culprit for Libya's deadly floods. Years of negligence also explain the failure of the two dams that caused a tsunami of 33 million cubic meters capable of carrying away entire buildings. The poor state of its infrastructure, the lack of security measures as well as the absence of maintenance had been warned by neighbors, local authorities and scientists.
Derna, a city of 100,000 inhabitants located 250 kilometers east of Benghazi, is located on the banks of the Wadi Derna valley that crosses the river of the same name from the mountains to the Mediterranean Sea. This area of 575 square kilometers has suffered several floods, including the one in 1959, which was particularly catastrophic, as detailed by Dr. Abdel Moneim Saeed in an article in News Libya. Therefore, in 1970 a Yugoslav company built the two dams that were to protect the city. And they demonstrated this in the downpours of 1986, where they prevented great damage.
The closest dam to the city is called Al Bilad, it is one kilometer to the south and had a storage capacity of 1.5 million cubic meters of water before it broke. Thirteen kilometers further south, towards the mountains, is the Abu Mansour Dam, which could store up to 22.5 million cubic meters. Both infrastructures were built from a compacted clay core with a stone shell which, according to experts consulted by the BBC, is less resistant than concrete. "In my entire life I have never seen the Abu Mansour Dam fill, due to its large storage capacity," writes Moneim Saeed.
The last 50 years without floods brought tranquility and confidence to the inhabitants and administrators of the valley, who began to build on the banks of the river previously prohibited because they were highly floodable lands. But the negligence is not explained so much by this behavior but because for years warnings had been heard that inspections and repairs were urgently needed.
"The dams have not been subject to maintenance since 2002" due to the political crisis in the African country, lamented the vice mayor of Derna, Ahmed Madroud in statements given to the Al Arabiya television network. And the dams "aren't especially big," he added. The first dam that failed, the furthest from the city, was only 70 meters high. Once the water passed through, it pooled behind the second dam, eventually causing it to break.
Omar al Mukhtar University hydrologist Abdelwanees A. R Ashoor warned in his research paper published in November 2022 that infrastructure required attention imminently. "The results showed that the study area has a high flood risk potential. Therefore, the dams in the Wadi Derna basin need periodic maintenance. In addition, it is necessary to increase the vegetation cover to reduce the phenomenon of desertification ", wrote.
An expert told Al Wasat, Libya's main news portal, that the dams were in poor condition. "Security chaos and the negligence of the Libyan authorities to closely monitor security measures led to the catastrophe," Mohammed Ahmed said.
Years of war and lack of a central government – the country is divided into rival governments, one in the east and one in the west – have left Libya with infrastructure vulnerable to heavy rains. After the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the city of Derna disintegrated into a center of Islamist extremist groups, was bombed by Egyptian airstrikes and then besieged by forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, a strongman in the east and whose troops they took control in 2019.
Like other cities in the east of the country, it has not seen much reconstruction or investment since the revolution. Most of its modern infrastructure was built during the Gaddafi era, including the demolished Wadi Valley dams. These days we read opinions that consider that the neglect had already come from the Gaddafi era, which, although it brought some improvements, had the eastern part of the country abandoned, while others point out that Haftar does not care for the inhabitants of the region either.
It is unknown at the moment whether the disaster came from neglect or lack of forecast of a storm of the level of Cyclone Daniel, which left 115 million cubic meters of water on the valley in 24 hours, according to calculations by Dr. Moneim Saeed. "It is still early to determine if the dam's failure was due to a lack of maintenance or if it was not designed to withstand the exceptional amount of rain that fell," said the professor of climate risks and resilience in the Department of Meteorology of the University of Reading, Liz Stephens, to France24, who considered, however, that more meticulous monitoring of the dams could have been vital to prevent collapse.
The only alert the residents of Derna heard was the sound of the dams bursting. Then came a huge wave that swept away parts of buildings, vehicles and human lives, too many lives. This was confirmed by the head of the World Meteorological Organization, dependent on the UN, Petteri Taalas, underlining that the years of internal conflict ravaging the country have "largely destroyed the meteorological observation network", as well as the computer systems. "Floods occurred and evacuations did not occur because adequate early warning systems were not in place," he said during a news conference in Geneva. Local authorities estimate a death toll of 20,000 people, many of them ending up in the sea.
