cnn
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It all started strongly at 3 a.m. on Monday, while the residents of Derna were sleeping. One dam burst, then another, Sending a huge wave of water It flowed through the mountains toward the coastal city of Libya, killing thousands of people and sweeping entire neighborhoods into the sea.
Doctors Without Borders said in a statement on Thursday that at least 5,000 people had died in Libya due to flooding this week, in a revision of previous estimates.
The population of the eastern Libyan city of Derna, the epicenter of the disaster, was about 100,000 before the tragedy struck. Authorities say at least 10,000 people remain missing. CNN could not independently verify these numbers.
Buildings, homes and infrastructure were “destroyed” when a 7-meter wave hit the city, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which said Thursday that the bodies of the dead were being swept away again. coast.
But with thousands dead and many still missing, there are questions about why the storm that hit Greece and other countries caused more devastation in Libya.
Experts say that, aside from the powerful storm itself, Libya disaster It has been greatly exacerbated by a deadly combination of factors including ageing, deteriorating infrastructure, inadequate warnings and the effects of the accelerating climate crisis.
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The heavy rains that hit Libya on Sunday came through a system called Storm Daniel.
After the invasion of Greece, Türkiye and Bulgaria Severe flooding The cyclone killed more than 20 people and became a “medicine storm” over the Mediterranean Sea, a relatively rare type of storm with characteristics similar to hurricanes and tornadoes.
The medical ship’s strength strengthened as it crossed the unusually warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea before heavy rain fell on Libya on Sunday.
It brought more than 414 mm (16 inches) of rain in 24 hours to Al Bayda, a town west of Derna, a new record.
While it is too early to definitively attribute the storm to the climate crisis, scientists are confident that climate change is increasing the severity of extreme weather events like storms. Warmer oceans provide fuel for storm growth, and a warmer atmosphere can retain more moisture, which means heavier rainfall.
Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, said storms “are becoming more ferocious due to climate change.”
Derna is prone to flooding and its dam reservoirs have caused at least five deadly floods since 1942, the last of which was in 2011, according to a recent report. Research work Published by Libyan Sebha University last year.
The two dams that exploded on Monday were built approximately half a century ago, between 1973 and 1977. By a Yugoslavian construction company. The Derna Dam has a height of 75 meters (246 feet) and a storage capacity of 18 million cubic meters (4.76 billion gallons). The second Al-Mansour Dam is 45 meters (148 feet) high and has a capacity of 1.5 million cubic meters (396 million gallons).
These dams have not been maintained since 2002, in the city. Deputy Mayor Ahmed Madroud told Al Jazeera.
But the problems with the dams were well known. The Sebha University article warned that the dams in Derna have a “high flood risk potential” and that regular maintenance is necessary to avoid “catastrophic” flooding.
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“The current situation at the Wadi Derna reservoir requires officials to take immediate measures to carry out regular maintenance of the existing dams,” the document recommended last year. “Because if a major flood occurs, the result will be disastrous for the inhabitants of the valley and the city.” The surrounding area was also found to lack adequate vegetation that could prevent soil erosion. He called on residents in the area to be aware of the dangers of flooding.
Liz Stevens, professor of climate risk and resilience at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, told CNN that there are serious questions to be asked about the dam’s design standard and whether the risk of extremely heavy rainfall has been adequately taken into account. . account.
“It’s very clear that if the dam had not collapsed, we would not have seen this tragic number of deaths,” he said.
“The levees would have initially held back water, and their failure would likely have released all the water at once,” Stevens also told the Science Media Center, adding that “suspended debris in the flood waters would have increased the destructive force.” .
Derna has been bombed in the past and its infrastructure has deteriorated due to years of fighting.
Since the fight against ISIS and later against eastern commander Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army, the city’s infrastructure has collapsed and become woefully inadequate in the face of flooding such as those caused by Storm Daniel.
Petteri Taalas, director of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, said better warnings could have prevented most of the casualties in Derna.
“If the weather service had functioned normally, the warnings would have been issued and the emergency service would also have been able to evacuate people and we would have avoided most of the casualties,” Taalas said. He told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.
Talas added that political instability in the country has hampered the efforts of the Organization (WMO) to work with the Libyan government to improve these systems.
However, even strong early warning systems do not guarantee that all lives can be saved, Cloke said.
He told CNN that dam failures can be very difficult to predict, and they are fast and fierce. “There’s a huge volume of water sweeping through the entire city,” Klock said. “It’s one of the worst types of flooding that has ever happened.”
While dams are typically designed to withstand relatively extreme events, that is often not enough, Klock said. “We have to prepare for unexpected events and then we put climate change at the top of the list, and this exacerbates these unexpected events.”
The threat that climate-driven extreme weather poses to infrastructure—not just dams, but everything from buildings to water supplies—is a global threat. “We are not prepared for the extreme events that are coming,” Klock said.
2023-09-15 07:00:48
#floods #Libya #deadly
