Libya’s Attorney General ordered the detention of eight current and former government officials pending an investigation into the collapse of two dams earlier this month, which left thousands dead.
The two dams on the outskirts of the city of Derna (east) broke on September 11, after being flooded by Storm Daniel, which caused heavy rains in eastern Libya.
Failures in both structures caused about a quarter of the city to flood, local authorities said, destroying entire neighborhoods and sweeping people into the sea.
Government authorities and aid agencies estimated that between 4,000 and 11,000 people died in the disaster. According to search teams, the bodies of many of the dead are still found under the rubble or in the Mediterranean Sea.
In a statement, Prosecutor General al-Sidiq al-Sour’s office said prosecutors heard on Sunday from seven current and former employees of the Water Resources Authority and the Dam Management Authority about allegations that mismanagement , negligence and errors contributed to the disaster.
The mayor of Derna, Abdel-Moneim al-Ghaithi, who was fired after the disaster, was also questioned, according to the statement.
Prosecutors ordered the arrest of the eight people while the investigation continues, the statement added.
The dams were built by a Yugoslav construction company in the 1970s on Wadi Derna, a river valley that divides the city.
A state audit agency report from 2021 stated that the two dams had not been repaired, despite more than two million dollars (1.88 million euros) being allocated for this in 2012 and 2013.
Two weeks after the disaster, local and international teams continue to search for bodies in the rubble and under the mud. They are also searching the Mediterranean Sea off Derna for bodies washed away by the flood.
The floods damaged around a third of Derna’s homes and infrastructure, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Authorities evacuated people from the most affected area of the city, leaving only search teams and ambulances.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said more than 4,000 deaths had been recorded, including foreigners, but the previous death toll given by the head of the Libyan Red Crescent was 11,300. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says at least nine thousand people remain missing.
The storm hit other areas of eastern Libya, including the cities of Bayda, Susa, Marj and Shahatt. Tens of thousands of people were displaced in the region and housed in schools and other government buildings.
Source: TSF
