Thursday 14 September 2023

Libya - Derna - Dams

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Libya has a government in Tobruk and a rival government in Tripoli

In Derna,  two dams collapsed, causing damage across the area.[32]

Osama Hamada, Prime Minister of the Government of National Stability which controls eastern Libya, declared a state of emergency on 9 September [28]

 Residents recalled hearing loud explosions at the time the dams burst.[33] 

The mayor of Derna, Abdulmenam Al-Ghaithi, told al-Arabiya that the final death toll in the city could range from 18,000 to 20,000.

The collapsed dams, called Derna and Mansur respectively, were built by Yugoslav company Hidrotehnika-Hidroenergetika from 1973 to 1977 to irrigate agricultural lands and provide water to nearby communities. 

They were described as clay-filled embankment dams with a height of 75 meters and 45 meters respectively.[45] 

Derna's deputy mayor said that they had not been maintained since 2002 and were not built to withstand such volumes of water.[46] 

 The House of Representatives based in Benghazi, which controls most of the areas affected, declared three days of national mourning, as did the internationally-recognized Government of National Unity based in Tripoli led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah.[73] 

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NATO imperialism and the Libya flood catastrophe

The failure of critical infrastructure in the Libyan city of Derna that has claimed thousands of lives is the product of the 2011 NATO war in Libya.


'It flows from the war NATO waged against Libya in 2011, which shattered the country and plunged it into civil war. 

Those who launched the NATO war in Libya or applauded it as a “humanitarian” intervention and who today are backing a NATO war against Russia in Ukraine on similar grounds bear direct political and moral responsibility for the Derna catastrophe.

'Last year, hydrologist Abdelwanees Ashoor wrote articles warning that Derna’s dams were in poor condition and that a major flood would be “likely to cause one of the two dams to collapse. … If a huge flood happens, the result will be catastrophic for the people of the wadi and the city.”

'No repairs were done, however, because of the civil war that has raged between rival governments in eastern and western Libya since NATO destroyed Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in the 2011 war.

International Crisis Group official Claudia Gazzini told France24: “In 10 years since the fall of the Gaddafi regime—in the following 10 years of wars, policy rivalry and isolation—both governments have completely neglected the infrastructure.”'

1 Comments:

At 14 September 2023 at 10:55 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23607667?fbclid=IwAR0xYQcM-3KsPsuMiCPL8c9J1yqH-8O0NFSrK62AcX5FcQ4knQ9F08g8x70

 

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