TRIPOLI – Over a decade of bloody power battles in Libya have resulted in vital infrastructure falling into disrepair, culminating in the catastrophic death toll in Sunday’s flood, politicians and analysts have said.
Wracked by conflict and division ever since a Nato-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the North African country is currently ruled by two rival administrations.
In the west is the UN-brokered, internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital Tripoli and led by Abdulhamid Dbeibah, while a rival administration holds sway in the flood-ravaged east, backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
The power battles have repeatedly degenerated into deadly conflict, but a 2020 ceasefire that brought an end to a bloody assault by Haftar’s forces on Tripoli, has largely held.
On September 10, hurricane-strength Storm Daniel made landfall in eastern Libya, triggering torrential rain in the hills above the port city of Derna.
The deluge overwhelmed two upstream dams and sent a wall of water and debris down the normally dry riverbed that cuts through the city centre.
Whole neighbourhoods and their residents were washed out to sea, while much of the rest of the city was submerged.
Constructed in the 1970s, the two dams had not been maintained for years.
Like much of the city’s crumbling infrastructure, they stood no chance against the weight of the floodwaters.
Libya’s Tripoli-based prime minister blamed the tragedy on the absence of adequate development plans and the “effect of the years” on the dams.
“This is one of the results of the conflict and wars and the money that was lost,” Mr Dbeibah said during a televised meeting with ministers and experts.
‘Ticking time bomb’
According to Anas el-Gomati, an analyst at the Sadeq Institute think tank, “years of neglecting the dams of Derna, and failing to release pressure on the dam as the storm hit, acted like a ticking time bomb”.
“The eastern authorities… have tragically and criminally miscalculated, and fallen short of their responsibility to protect their own citizens,” he added.
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