Libyan officials face jail in Derna flood disaster probe

More than 4,500 were killed when two dams collapsed due to heavy rain from Storm Daniel last September

The damage caused by Storm Daniel to Derna, which swept across eastern Libya in September last year. Reuters

A Libyan court has sentenced 12 officials to between nine and 27 years in prison for their role in the collapse of two dams that killed more than 4,500 people last year and destroyed much of the eastern coastal city of Derna.

The officials, who were responsible for managing water resources and maintaining the dams, were charged by the Derna criminal court with crimes ranging from negligence to premeditated murder and wasting public money.

The sentence was announced on Facebook by the attorney general of the Tripoli-based government.

The National was unable to confirm the ruling from the Derna court directly and it is not clear whether the convicted were present in court or sentenced in absentia.

Three of the defendants were ordered to “return money obtained from illicit gains”, said the statement on Sunday, while four were acquitted.

Libya remains divided after it was plunged into years of armed conflict following the overthrow of dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s regime by western-backed forces in 2011.

A survivor sits on the rubble of a destroyed building in Libya's eastern city of Derna. AFP.

The country has two rival administrations, one in Tripoli that enjoys the support of most of the international community while the other in Benghazi is under the control of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army.

Storm Daniel made landfall in the southern Mediterranean basin on September 10, lashing eastern Libya.

It caused heavy floods in the cities of Benghazi, Al Bayda, Al Marj, Sousse and Derna, which bore the brunt of the disaster after the Bilad and Sidi Bou Mansour dams collapsed

The death toll stood at 4,540 – 3,964 Libyans and 576 foreigners – with thousands more missing, making Daniel the deadliest African storm in recorded history.

Libyan prosecutors said in a report published in January that “negligence” led to the collapse of the dams.

Disaster inquiry

A report by the World Bank, the UN and the EU, also in January, said the collapse of the dams was due to their design, as well as poor maintenance and management problems.

The initial largest of the two dams that failed was built along the river in the 1970s by a Yugoslavian company to control seasonal floods that were commonplace in the narrow wadi.

Completed in 1977, it consisted of an “embankment dam” built with rocks and clay, with a reinforced concrete wall in the centre.

Derna deputy mayor Ahmed Madroud said not long after the disaster that the structures had not been maintained since 2002.

Later accounts alleged attempts to fix the dams, which suffered ageing and failing concrete, never happened or were incorrectly carried out due to corruption.

A contract was allegedly issued to a Turkish company for 53.5 million Libyan dinars (about $11 million) to fix both dams in 2020. The years of crisis that befell Libya after the 2011 Nato-led effort to oust Muammar Qaddafi added another layer of complication amid period clashes between militias across the country and a series of rival administrations.

Historians say Derna had long been neglected by the state, as an early centre of opposition to Qaddafi. During the country's post-2011 conflicts, the city was taken over by religious extremists linked to both Al Qaeda and ISIS, becoming the scene of heavy fighting in 2016.

About a year after the flooding, many residents of Derna remain displaced in other cities due to the destruction of their homes and stalled reconstruction efforts by authorities.

Clashes between armed factions attempting to seize control of the oil-rich North African state still often erupt in different regions, deepening instability that affects basic services such as infrastructure, health and education.