People look at the damage caused by freak floods in Derna, eastern Libya, on Sept. 11, 2023. (Credit: AFP)
Libya's prosecutor general on Monday ordered the arrest of eight officials as part of his inquiry into the recent flood disaster which killed thousands, his office said.
The flash flood, which witnesses likened to a tsunami, broke through two aging dams on Sept. 10 after a hurricane-strength storm lashed the area around Derna, a port city in Libya's east.
The officials are suspected of "bad management" and negligence, a statement from the prosecutor general's office said, adding that they served currently or previously in offices responsible for water resources and dam management.
On Saturday the official death toll passed 3,800, and international aid groups have said 10,000 or more people may be missing.
After opening a probe, Libya's prosecutor general Al-Seddik al-Sur said more than a week ago that the two dams upstream from Derna had been cracked since 1998.
But repairs begun by a Turkish company in 2010 were suspended after a few months when Libya's 2011 revolution flared, and the work never resumed, the prosecutor said on Sept. 16, vowing to deal firmly with those responsible.
The 2011 NATO-backed revolt toppled longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, leading to over a decade of start-stop conflict.
Libya is now divided between an internationally recognized Tripoli-based administration in the west — to which Sur belongs — and another in the flood-struck east.
Eastern forces years ago launched a failed assault on the capital which ended in a 2020 ceasefire.
Since then a period of relative stability has held and allowed war-ravaged Libya to try to rebuild.
Wall of water
The first dam to collapse in the disaster was the Abu Mansur dam, 13 kilometers (eight miles) from Derna, whose reservoir held 22.5 million cubic meters (nearly 800 million cubic feet) of water.
The deluge then broke Al Bilad, the second dam, which had a capacity of 1.5 million cubic meters and is just a kilometer from the coastal city.
The wall of water and debris swept through the normally dry riverbed or wadi that cuts through the city center.
Both dams were constructed by a Yugoslav company in the 1970s, "not to collect water but to protect Derna from floods," Sour said earlier.
Since Libya's 2011 revolution, a budget has been allocated every year to repair the two dams, but none of the successive governments has undertaken the work, according to an official.
In a 2021 report from the Libyan audit bureau, officials criticized "procrastination" on resuming repair work at the two dams.
In November 2022, engineer and academic Abdel Wanis Ashour warned in a study that a "catastrophe" threatened Derna if the authorities did not carry out maintenance on the dams.