Libya floods: Warnings that went unheeded
Also read: Libya flood updates: Death toll in Derna rises to over 11,000. 10 points UN World Meteorological Organization said many deaths could have been avoided if early warning and emergency management systems had functioned properly in the war-scarred country. However, hydrologist Abdul Wanis Ashour who researched the system of dams protecting Derna 17 years ago, found several problems in the eastern port town.
"I found also a number of reports warning of a disaster taking place in the Derna Valley basin if the dams were not maintained," he told Reuters news agency. In an academic paper he published last year, Ashour warned that if the dams were not urgently maintained, the city faced a potential catastrophe. Also read: Libya Floods Updates: Death toll in Derna rises to 5100 "There were warnings before that.
The state knew of this well, whether through experts in the Public Water Commission or the foreign companies that came to assess the dam," he said. "The Libyan government knew what was going on in the Derna River Valley and the danger of the situation for a very long time." Authorities tried to repair the dams above Derna as far back as 2007 when a Turkish company was awarded a contract to work on them. In his report, hydrologist Ashour cites an unpublished 2006 study from the Water Resources Ministry on "the danger of the situation." But in 2011, Libya's long-serving ruler Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in a NATO-backed uprising and civil war.
Derna was held by a succession of militant Islamist factions, including Al Qaeda and Islamic State. The Turkish company, Arsel, lists a project on its website to repair the Derna dams as having begun in 2007 and been completed in 2012. Reuters report said that work on the dams
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