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Libyan prosecutor opens probe into collapse of two dams after 11,000 killed

Recovery efforts have been hampered by difficulty getting aid to the hardest-hit areas and the destruction of infrastructure.

LAST UPDATE | 16 Sep 2023

LIBYA’S TOP PROSECUTER has opened an investigation into the collapse of two dams that caused a devastating flood in a coastal city as rescue teams searched for bodies.

Libyan authorities have stopped civilians from entering the flooded city of Derna to make it easier to search for the more than 10,000 people still missing and presumed dead after the disaster which has already killed more than 11,000.

The staggering death toll could grow further due to the spread of waterborne diseases and shifting of explosive ordnance that was swept up when two dams collapsed early on Monday and sent a wall of water gushing through the city, officials warned.

General Prosecutor Al-Sediq al-Sour said prosecutors would investigate the collapse of the two dams, which were built in the 1970s, as well as the allocation of maintenance funds. He said prosecutors would investigate local authorities in the city as well as previous governments.

“I reassure citizens that whoever made mistakes or negligence, prosecutors will certainly take firm measures, file a criminal case against him and send him to trial,” he told a news conference in Derna on Friday.

It is unclear how such an investigation can be carried out in the North African country, which plunged into chaos after a Nato-backed uprising toppled dictator Muammar Gadhafi in 2011.

The disaster has brought some rare unity to  Libya, which after years of war and civil unrest is divided between rival governments in the country’s east and west that are backed by various militia forces and international patrons.

But the opposing governments have struggled to respond to the crisis, and recovery efforts have been hampered by confusion, difficulty getting aid to the hardest-hit areas, and the destruction of Derna’s infrastructure, including several bridges.

Aid groups called on authorities to facilitate their access to the city so they can distribute badly needed food, clean water and medical supplies to survivors. Four days into the crisis, the lack of central oversight was apparent, with people receiving supplies and resources in some parts of Derna but being left to fend for themselves in others.

people-search-for-flood-victims-in-derna-libya-friday-sept-15-2023-search-teams-are-combing-streets-wrecked-buildings-and-even-the-sea-to-look-for-bodies-in-derna-where-the-collapse-of-two-da The search for flood victims continues among wrecked buildings Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Manoelle Carton, the medical co-ordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Libya, described waiting in line for hours to get into the city and, once inside, finding volunteers from around the country who had flocked to Derna getting in the way of humanitarian workers at times.

“Everybody wants to help. But it is becoming chaotic,” she said. “There is an enormous need for co-ordination.”

Teams have buried bodies in mass graves outside the city and in nearby towns, Eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel, said.

But officials worried that thousands more have yet to be found.

Bodies “are littering the streets, washing back up on shore and buried under collapsed buildings and debris,” said Bilal Sablouh, regional forensics manager for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“In just two hours, one of my colleagues counted over 200 bodies on the beach near Derna,” he said.

Divers are also searching the waters off the Mediterranean coastal city.

Carton said later on Friday that most of the dead bodies had been cleared from the streets in the areas of the city the Doctors Without Borders team visited, but there were other grim signs, including that one of the three medical centres they went to was out of service “because almost all of the medical staff died”. Thousands of people displaced by the flooding are staying in shelters or with friends or relatives, she said.

Adel Ayad, who survived the flood, recalled watching as the waters rose to the fourth floor of his building.

“The waves swept people away from the tops of buildings, and we could see people carried by floodwater,” he said. Among them were neighbours.

Salam al-Fergany, director general of the Ambulance and Emergency Service in eastern Libya, said late on Thursday that residents would be evacuated from Derna and that only search-and-rescue teams would be allowed to enter. But there were no signs of such an evacuation on Friday.

Health officials warned that standing water opened the door to disease – but said there was no need to rush burials or put the dead in mass graves, as bodies usually do not pose a risk in such cases.

“You’ve got a lot of standing water. It doesn’t mean the dead bodies pose a risk, but it does mean that the water itself is contaminated by everything,” Dr Margaret Harris, spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation, told reporters in Geneva. “So you really have to focus on ensuring that people have access to safe water.”

Imene Trabelsi, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, warned that landmines and other explosives left behind by the country’s protracted conflict could also be lurking in the mud.

There are leftover explosives in Libya dating back to the Second World War, but most are from the civil conflict that began in 2011. Between 2011 and 2021, some 3,457 people were killed or injured by landmines or other leftover explosive ordnance in Libya, according to the international Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor.

Even before the flooding, Trabelsi said the ability to detect and remove mines from areas was limited. After the floods, she said, explosive devices may have been swept to “new, undetected areas” where they could pose an immediate threat to search teams and a longer-term threat to civilians.

Carton echoed the concerns about an outbreak of water-related diseases in the city. Beyond that, she said, there is a “huge need in mental health support” among survivors, witnesses and medical workers.

According to the Libyan Red Crescent, there were 11,300 flooding deaths in Derna as of Thursday. Another 10,100 people were reported missing, though there was little hope many of them would be found alive, the aid group said. The storm also killed about 170 people elsewhere in the country.

Libyan media reported that dozens of Sudanese migrants were killed in the disaster. The country has become a major transit point for Middle Eastern and African migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to seek a better life in Europe.

Flooding often happens in Libya during the rainy season, but rarely with this much destruction. Scientists said the storm bore some of the hallmarks of climate change, and extremely warm sea water could have given the storm more energy and allowed it to move more slowly.

Officials have said that Libya’s political chaos also contributed to the loss of life.

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    Mute I9AQcjXs
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    Sep 16th 2023, 8:07 AM

    Still no article from the journal on how nato allies caused this nation to become a failed state leading to such catastrophic lose of life…
    Would love to see some balanced reporting!

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    Mute David Jordan
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    Sep 16th 2023, 8:58 AM

    @I9AQcjXs: And still no mention of the involvement of of Russia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates in Libya’s second civil war, 2014-2020, their support General Kalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army, that tried to overthrow the UN recognised government and bought about years of instability and chaos to the country.

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    Mute Sean
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    Sep 16th 2023, 9:44 AM

    @David Jordan: The war crimes of NATO aggression that targeted civilian infrastructure in 2011 is something that one must really make a big effort to miss or in your case David, pretend to miss. A country with the best water infrastructure in Africa was bombed back into the stone age. The root cause of the misery in Libya is the dirty war against them by NATO. Due to NATO interference, several problems like a lack of unified government and the collapse of welfare services has made the country unable to cope with natural disasters like this one

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    Mute Sean O'Dhubhghaill
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    Sep 16th 2023, 1:33 PM

    @I9AQcjXs: Well, why don’t you contact them? Click on the menu (top left) then under ‘about’ you will find the option for contacting them. It might be a damn sight more productive than your self-righteous whinge here whivh just bores the rest of us.

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    Mute james mcmanus
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    Sep 16th 2023, 2:42 PM

    @I9AQcjXs:

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    Mute Steo
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    Sep 16th 2023, 7:30 PM

    @I9AQcjXs: The dams were damaged by flooding in 1998 and not repaired. Libyan engineers have been warning of the prospects of disaster since then. The dams weren’t bombed. 1998 was 13 years before Gaddafi fell. The Red Cross reports on NATO bombings dont mention the dams. Of course all, the Putin fluffers on here blame NATO. Why, I wonder?

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    Mute Steo
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    Sep 16th 2023, 7:41 PM

    @Sean: So you were obviously cheering for Gaddafi as he murdered 7000 civilians in 2011. How do you suggest we deal with aggressors like him. Hand wringing, letter writing, and promises of fluffy pillows, is it? Never mind that Gaddafi was a child abuser and murderer. Your whining isn’t revealing anything positive. Do you also admire the other leader who likes to kiss little boys’ belly buttons?

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    Mute I can see clearly now
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    Sep 16th 2023, 10:33 AM

    Those that have manipulated the comments section towards politics and war should be ashamed of themselves, it is truly sickening. There has been a huge loss of life, people are suffering, conditions they are enduring are horrific, amplified by the fear of explosive ordnance, people are witnessing death all around them – it is far beyond my realm of understanding what they are going through as I have never witnessed devastation such as that – most of us here have not, however my sympathy for those poor people at this time is endless.

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    Mute damien leen
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    Sep 16th 2023, 7:46 AM

    Thoughts & prayers!

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    Mute Emma Marchand
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    Sep 16th 2023, 8:24 AM

    The truth about Libya is that the despots that rule her do not care enough about the people to put their differences aside. The AU are inneffective, despite Libya being a major player in her inception. China have only empry words. Thr Russian mercenaries will not help. Only the EU and the US can help.

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    Mute David Jordan
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    Sep 16th 2023, 9:26 AM

    @Rowe: The countries involved in the Arab Spring were Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait.

    Most countries were western allies the West had no interest in destabilising, only two clearly anti-Western countries were on the list, Libya and Syria.

    So this claim that the Arab Spring was a Western plot is rather silly, given most of the governments affected were not anti-Western.

    Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was overtopped and replaced by replaced the Muslim Brotherhood after flawed elections, later General Sisi overthrew them and restored a pro-western dictatorship. Similarly in Yemen, the pro-western government was overtopped and President Hadi fled the country, pro-Iranian Houthis took the capital Sana. Similarly in Bahrain, pro-Iranian protestors rioted and tried to overthrow the pro-western government there, protests brutally suppressed with help from Saudi Arabia.

    Also, this obsessive focus Libya in 2011 completely disregards the involvement and culpability of Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey in Libya’s second civil war, 2011-2020, which I doubt you even heard of.

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    Mute Sean
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    Sep 16th 2023, 10:05 AM

    @Emma Marchand: Libya didn’t need any help from any country until NATO went in and destroyed it. They were a model of self sufficiency and North Africa’s most prosperous nation and that was not acceptable to France, the UK and their NATO allies

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    Mute Sean
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    Sep 16th 2023, 10:19 AM

    @David Jordan: Why is it so difficult for you to see a connection between the destabilisation of Libya since the dirty war perpetrated by NATO and the unfolding of chaos since then? You are correct of course that there has been a devolving situation since then but any rational root cause analysis must take NATO action into account. Can you at least acknowledge that the actions of NATO members precipitated the unfolding nightmare there? An honest evaluation couldn’t come to any other conclusion imo

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    Mute Chris Curran
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    Sep 16th 2023, 10:40 AM

    Terrible sad. The reality is more refugees for Europe as a result. Realistically, the appropriate solution is politicial stability, economic, social and infrastructure investment in North Africa to give people a reason not to come to Europe.

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    Mute Oh Mammy
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    Sep 16th 2023, 4:02 PM

    What you do not see so clearly, I can see clearly now, is that we should never forget who put the Libyan people in this mess. Muammar el Quddafi was no prize pupil but he did much better for the libyan people than did the likes of Hillary Clinton and other such highly praised psychopaths. It is incredible that people will talk with disgust of what the Russians are doing in Ukraine but will happily gloss over what the west has done to Libya and much of the middle east.

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    Mute Zionist Shill
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    Sep 16th 2023, 4:05 PM

    @Oh Mammy: Or not so incredible, depending on your particular point of view…

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    Mute I9AQcjXs
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    Sep 16th 2023, 3:21 PM

    @ David Jordan: Aah David come on I know you can miss direct better than that! Poor effort..

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    Mute I9AQcjXs
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    Sep 16th 2023, 3:18 PM

    @ Sean O’ Dhubhghaill: I have many times!
    This is a way to get a general conversation going about journalistic integrity or the lack there of.
    Can you explain my “self righteous whinge”??
    I literally expressed my desire to see balanced factual reporting on the causes of such disasters so people can better understand the consequences of western interventionist policies across North Africa and the Middle East, what is your gripe with this opinion?
    Do you speak for the “rest of us”? popular lad to know what everyone else thinks you must spend every second clawing opinions out of the journal viewers…

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    Mute Oh Mammy
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    Sep 16th 2023, 4:08 PM

    ZS, people getting slaughtered is not a point of view. It is psychopathic behavior regardless of one’s point of view and should be condemned by all.

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    Mute Zionist Shill
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    Sep 16th 2023, 4:16 PM

    @Oh Mammy: Of course the Holocaust was terrible. It should be condemned by all.

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    Mute F Fitzgerald
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    Sep 16th 2023, 4:21 PM

    Tragic neglect of civil infrastructure. I hope they can put their fighting aside to get the dams repaired as a priority.

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    Mute F Fitzgerald
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    Sep 17th 2023, 12:38 AM

    News report here: ://youtu.be/5S3HstiTNrc?si=hBbyl2kl43sc2JOw

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