Sixteen officials in Libya have been detained amid an investigation into the deadly collapse of two dams after heavy rain in the coastal city Derna earlier this month, according to a statement by the Libyan attorney general\u2019s office. Thousands of people died in ensuing floods. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe investigating authority initiates a criminal case against sixteen officials responsible for managing the country\u2019s dam facilities,\u201d the attorney general\u2019s statement reads. <\/p>\n
The coastal city\u2019s mayor and several present and former water infrastructure authorities were among those detained. <\/p>\n
Torrential rainfall and the bursting of the dams sent a huge wave of water through Derna on September 10, sweeping entire neighborhoods into the sea. Close to 4,000 people died in Libya\u2019s floods and 9,000 more remain unaccounted for, according to the World Health Organization. <\/p>\n
Protests erupted in Derna last week over the catastrophe, with locals demanding the removal of those in power. <\/p>\n
The attorney general said Monday that it placed the 16 officials under pre-trial detention after interrogations. Prosecutors are also investigating others connected to the floods, especially any who may have benefitted unlawfully from the city\u2019s reconstruction project. <\/p>\n
\u201cA request of an expanded investigation has been issued into the rest of those responsible for the Derna flood incident and others who mismanaged the reconstruction project and obtained illegal revenues because of this misuse,\u201d the statement added. <\/p>\n
Derna is prone to flooding, and its dam reservoirs have caused at least five deadly floods since 1942, the latest of which was in 2011, according to a research paper published by Libya\u2019s Sebha University last year. <\/p>\n
The two dams that burst on Monday were built around half a century ago, between 1973 and 1977, by a Yugoslav construction company. The Derna dam is 75 meters (246 feet) high with a storage capacity of 18 million cubic meters (4.76 billion gallons). The second dam, Mansour, is 45 meters (148 feet) high with a capacity of 1.5 million cubic meters (396 million gallons). <\/p>\n
Those dams haven\u2019t undergone maintenance since 2002, the city\u2019s deputy mayor Ahmed Madroud told Al Jazeera. <\/p>\n
But the problems with the dams were known. The Sebha University paper warned that the dams in Derna had a \u201chigh potential for flood risk\u201d and that periodic maintenance is needed to avoid \u201ccatastrophic\u201d flooding. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe current situation in the Wadi Derna reservoir requires officials to take immediate measures to carry out periodic maintenance of existing dams,\u201d the paper recommended last year. \u201cBecause in the event of a huge flood, the result will be catastrophic on the residents of the valley and the city.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Sixteen officials in Libya have been detained amid an investigation into the deadly collapse of two dams after heavy rain in the coastal city Derna earlier this month, according to a statement by the Libyan attorney general\u2019s office. Thousands of people died in ensuing floods. \u201cThe investigating authority initiates a criminal case against sixteen officials <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}