Libya’s chief prosecutor said Monday, September 25, he ordered the detention of sixteen current and former officials pending his investigation into the collapse of two dams earlier this month, a disaster that sent a wall of water several meters high through the center of a coastal city and left thousands of people dead. The two dams outside the city of Derna broke up on September 11 after they were overwhelmed by Storm Daniel, which caused heavy rain across eastern Libya. The failure of the structures inundated as much as a quarter of the city, officials have said, destroying entire neighborhoods and sweeping people out to sea.
A statement by the office of General Prosecutor al-Sidiq al-Sour said prosecutors on Sunday questioned former and current officials with the Water Resources Authority and the Dams Management Authority over allegations that mismanagement, negligence, and mistakes contributed to the disaster. Derna Mayor Abdel-Moneim al-Ghaithi, who was sacked after the disaster, also was questioned, the statement said.
The officials didn't provide evidence to spare them from potential charges, and prosecutors ordered them jailed pending the completion of the investigation, the statement added. The questioning and jailing of officials were the first crucial step by the chief prosecutor in his investigation, which is likely to face daunting challenges due to Libya's years of divided leadership. Mounting calls for an international investigation into the disaster reflect the deep public mistrust in state institutions.
The dams were built by a Yugoslav construction company in the 1970s above Wadi Derna, a river valley that divides the city. They were meant to protect the city from flash floods, which are not uncommon in the area. The dams were not maintained for decades, despite warnings by scientists that they may burst. A report by a state-run audit agency in 2021 said the two dams hadn’t been maintained despite the allocation of more than $2 million for that purpose in 2012 and 2013. A Turkish firm was contracted in 2007 to carry out maintenance on the two dams and to build a third one in between them. The firm, Arsel Construction Company Ltd., said on its website that it completed its work in November 2012.
Two weeks after the dams collapsed, local and international teams were still digging through mud and hollowed-out buildings to look for victims. They also are combing the Mediterranean Sea off Derna for the bodies of people who were swept away. The flood of water from the dams left as much as one-third of Derna’s housing and infrastructure damaged, according to the U.N.’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA. Authorities have evacuated the most impacted part of the city, leaving only search and ambulance teams, the U.N. office said.
The World Health Organization says more than 4,000 flood-related deaths have been registered, but the head of Libya’s Red Crescent previously cited a death of toll of 11,300. OCHA says at least 9,000 people remain missing . The dead in eastern Libya included foreigners living in the North African countries.