Reuters
Updated Tue, September 19, 2023
Libyans protest outside mosque one week after deadly floods in Derna
(Reuters) - The aftermath of Libya's worst ever natural disaster was evolving into a political storm on Tuesday, after demonstrators furious at the failure to protect their city from a flood torched the home of the mayor of Derna.
The administration in charge of eastern Libya said it had suspended the mayor and fired the entire city council, after angry demonstrators demanded punishment for officials who left residents in harm's way.
The overnight protests marked the first unrest on the ground since a flood wiped out the centre of the city leaving thousands of residents confirmed dead and uncounted thousands more still missing. Following the protests, communications links with Derna were abruptly cut off on Tuesday morning.
Some journalists for media that have been broadcasting live from the city for days said on Tuesday that they had been ordered out. Officials in the eastern administration played this down or denied it.
Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation in the administration that runs eastern Libya, told Reuters by phone that some reporters had been told to stay away from rescue operations, but denied this was linked to security or politics.
"It is an attempt to create better conditions for the rescue teams to carry out the work more smoothly and effectively," he said. "The large number of journalists has become an impediment to the work of rescue teams."
A spokesperson for the state-owned Libyan Telecommunications Holding Company, Mohamed Albdairi, told Libya Alahrar television that the communications had gone down in the area because some fiber optic cables had been severed. Engineers were investigating whether this was due to excavation work or sabotage, and looking to repair it, he said.
Monday's demonstration was the first open expression of mass discontent since dams burst above Derna in a storm on Sept 10, unleashing a torrent of water that swept away the centre of the city.
Demonstrators crowded into the square in front of Derna's landmark gold-domed Sahaba mosque chanting slogans. Some waved flags from atop the mosque's roof. Later in the evening, they torched the house of Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi, his office manager told Reuters.
The government administering eastern Libya said Ghaithi had been suspended as mayor, and all members of the Derna city council had been dismissed from their posts and referred to investigators.
A week after the disaster, swathes of Derna remain a muddy ruin, roamed by stray dogs, with families still searching for missing bodies in the rubble.
Angry residents say the disaster could have been prevented. Officials acknowledge that a contract to repair the dams after 2007 was never completed, blaming insecurity in the area.
Libya has been a failed state for more than a decade, with no government exercising nationwide authority since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011. Derna has been controlled since 2019 by the Libyan National Army which holds sway in the east. For several years before that it was in the hands of militant groups, including local branches of Islamic State and al Qaeda.
The demonstrators denounced the eastern-based parliament speaker Aguila Saleh, who has called the flood a natural catastrophe that could not be avoided.
"Aguila we don't want you! All Libyans are brothers!" protesters chanted.
Mansour, a student taking part in the protest, said he wanted an urgent investigation into the collapse of the dams, which "made us lose thousands of our beloved people".
Taha Miftah, 39, said the protest was a message that "the governments have failed to manage the crisis", and that the parliament was especially to blame.
The full scale of the death toll has yet to emerge, with thousands of people still missing. Officials have given widely varying death tolls. The World Health Organization has confirmed 3,922 deaths.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff, Editing by Alexandra Hudson, William Maclean)
Libya floods: Why damage to Derna was so catastrophic
the Visual Journalism team and BBC Verify - BBC News
Thu, September 14, 2023
Devastation in Derna
The Derna flooding death toll could reach 20,000 according to the city's mayor.
Entire neighbourhoods disappeared into the sea as a huge tsunami-like torrent of water swept the port city in eastern Libya.
Survivors described the situation as "beyond catastrophic".
BBC Verify and the BBC's Visual Journalism team have been analysing some of the reasons why the floods caused such catastrophic damage in Derna.
Record rainfall
The water was brought by Storm Daniel which hit Libya on Sunday.
The storm - a Mediterranean hurricane-like system known as a medicane - brought more than 400mm of rain to parts of the north-east coast within a 24-hour period.
That is an extraordinary deluge of water for a region which usually sees about 1.5mm throughout the whole of September.
Libya's National Meteorological Centre says it is a new rainfall record.
Satellite data shows the extent of some of the rainfall across the region - although in many places the amount recorded on the ground was higher.
Map showing the heavy rainfall over northern Libya and highlighting Derna and Benghazi
It's too early to attribute with certainty the severity of this storm to rising global temperatures.
However, climate change is thought to be increasing the frequency of the strongest medicanes.
Prof Liz Stephens, an expert in climate risks and resilience at Reading University in the UK, says scientists are confident that climate change is supercharging the rainfall associated with such storms.
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Central bridges and communities along riverbed were swept away
Two dams overwhelmed
The Wadi Derna river runs from Libya's inland mountains, through the city of Derna and into the Mediterranean.
It is dry for much of the year, but the unusually heavy rain overwhelmed two crucial dams and destroyed several bridges.
Satellite image shows dam and buildings on usually dry riverbed
Residents of the city, who had been ordered by the local authorities to stay in their homes, reported hearing a loud blast before the city was engulfed in water.
"The dams would have held back the water initially, with their failure potentially releasing all the water in one go.
"The debris caught up in the floodwaters would have added to the destructive power," says Prof Stephens.
The upper dam had a storage capacity of 1.5 million cubic metres of water, whilst the lower dam could hold 22.5 million cubic metres.
Each cubic metre of water weighs about one tonne (1,000kg), so 1.5 million cubic metres of water would weigh 1.5 million tonnes.
Combine that weight with moving downhill, and it can produce enormous power. Witnesses have said that the waters were nearly three metres in places.
It is estimated that six inches (20cm) of fast moving flood-water is enough to knock someone off their feet, and 2ft (60cm) is enough to float a car. So it is no surprise that whole buildings were taken out in the flood.
Analysis of satellite images shows how many buildings affected
Experts say it's too early to know whether the extreme rainfall was simply too much for the dams to handle, or whether the condition of the structures also played a role.
Based on their observations, the dams are likely to be made from dumped and compacted soil or rocks, which is not as strong as concrete.
"These dams are susceptible to overtopping [when water exceeds a dam's capacity], and while concrete dams can survive overtopping, rockfill dams usually cannot," says Exeter University's Prof Dragan Savic, an expert in hydraulic engineering in the UK.
It appears that the upper dam failed first, according to structural engineer Andrew Barr.
He says the water then probably flowed down the rocky river valley towards the lower dam before overwhelming it, resulting in the sudden and catastrophic flooding of the city which lies trapped between mountains and the sea.
A research paper published last year on the hydrology of the Wadi Derna Basin highlighted that the area "has a high potential for flood risk", on the basis of likely historical flood volumes, and that the dams "needed periodic maintenance".
The report, by civil engineering expert Abdelwanees AR Ashoor from Libya's University of Omar Al-Mukhtar, said that "the current situation in the Derna valley basin requires officials to take immediate measures, carrying out regular maintenance of the existing dams, because in the event of a huge flood, the result will be disastrous for the residents of the valley and the city".
Several experts have highlighted the possible role that the political instability in Libya has played in the upkeep of the dam.
As rescue efforts in the city continue, Libyan journalist Johr Ali, who has spoken to survivors in the city, told the BBC: "People are hearing the cries of babies underground, they don't know how to get to them.
"People are using shovels to get the bodies from underneath the ground, they are using their own hands. They all say it's like doomsday."
Car engulfed in mud and rubble
Toys seen in damaged shop
Produced by Chris Clayton, Mike Hills, Paul Sargeant, Tural Ahmedzade, Kady Wardell, Gerry Fletcher, Filipa Silverio and Erwan Rivault. Additional reporting: Mark Poynting, Peter Mwai, Alex Murray, and Esme Stallard.
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