After two dams collapsed in a storm last week, killing hundreds of people, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has expressed worry about two further dams in east Libya that are reportedly under tremendous pressure.
Reports on the stability of the two dams, according to the UN agency, were “contradictory.”
Authorities said that the Jaza Dam, which is located between the storm-devastated city of Derna and adjacent Benghazi, and the Qattara Dam, which is also close to Benghazi, were both in good shape and operational.
According to the OCHA, the Jaza Dam was getting pressure-relief pumps installed.
The city of Derna was substantially destroyed by floods brought on by Mediterranean storm Daniel last week, which also destroyed two dams and left thousands of people dead and missing.
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In the meantime, the UN and relief organisations cautioned that people in Derna and other eastern Libyan flood-affected areas faced a serious danger of sickness from contaminated water.
For years, experts had warned that the two dams that had since collapsed were vulnerable to flooding because of lack of timely repair. The two dams, which were intended to protect about 90,000 people, were located uphill from the seaside city of Derna.
“In the event of a big flood, the consequences will be disastrous for the residents of the valley and the city,” Abdelwanees Ashoor, a professor of civil engineering, wrote in a study published last year in the Sabha University Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences.
Ashoor’s words were echoed by many other experts in previous years.
In Libya’s flood-hit areas, focus turns to helping survivors
- Pledge to investigate
The Abu Mansour and Derna dams were constructed in the 1970s by a Yugoslavian construction company with the intention of shielding the city from frequent flash floods. When a powerful storm struck the area in 1986, they sustained significant damage.
Al-Sediq al-Sour, the general prosecutor of Libya, claimed late on Friday that a 1990s assessment had discovered fractures and faults in the dams’ construction. However, the repeated pleas for upkeep from experts mostly went unanswered, and as a result, Libya has been ruled by two opposing administrations for more than ten years.
Al-Sour promised on Friday that prosecutors would look into the two dams’ collapse and the disappearance of the money set aside in the past to repair them.
“I reassure citizens that whoever made mistakes or negligence, prosecutors will certainly take firm measures, file a criminal case against him and send him to trial,” he said.
Several thousand people are reported to have died in the disaster although the exact figure remains very unclear.
- UN, aid groups warn of contaminated water
Additionally on Monday, the UN issued a warning that disease outbreaks in eastern Libya could lead to a “second devastating crisis” because of the region’s seriously harmed infrastructure.
Local government representatives, relief organizations, and the World Health Organization, according to the group, “are concerned about the risk of disease outbreak, particularly from contaminated water and the lack of sanitation.”
According to the UN, tens of thousands of Libyans who were affected by the flooding and who now need access to clean water, food, and basic necessities are now at risk of contracting cholera, diarrhoea, dehydration, and malnutrition.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has issued a similar warning, stating that a “rapidly escalating public health crisis” was threatening the flood-affected regions of the North African nation.
“Recent floods have severely contaminated water sources with sewage, rendering them unsafe for consumption and exposing communities to grave health risks,” the committee said.
“Contaminated water can lead to the spread of waterborne diseases, putting vulnerable populations, especially women and children, at increased risk,” it said.
The IRC said the eastern city of Derna had already recorded at least 55 children who have become sick as a result of contaminated water.
Elie Abouaoan, the IRC’s Libya Country Director, said that the situation in Derna and other flood-affected areas was “dire,” stressing that the “access to clean water is a basic human right.”
