Dire warnings about Libya dams went unheeded(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Dire warnings about Libya dams went unheeded
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/16/world/middleeast/libya-dams-warnings.html
72 comments
Charles Perrow's work, most especially Normal Accidents and The Next Disaster focuses on this and related organisational and sociological failings. Very strongly recommended.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Accidents>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Perrow#Notable_works>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Accidents>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Perrow#Notable_works>
There was a famous flooding in the Netherlands in 1953 that was basically predicted by engineers but the country was broke after WW2.
I think Libya is the same? They just came out of a civil war.
I think Libya is the same? They just came out of a civil war.
Calling the situation in Libya a civil war is accurate but sort of elides the real situation. Libya has not recovered from the NATO regime change operation to remove Gaddafi from power. The civil war is the outcome of the regime change operation.
US and France made airstrikes on Libya destroying infrastructure. The "spreading democracy" line is seen as Western imperialism which spreads suffering.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/libya-and-the-myth-of-h...
Libya had given up their quest to obtain nuclear weapons, yet they were still destroyed by the West. North Korea can read this history, so they dig in more fiercly to prevent a similar outcome.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/30/how-the-miserable-death-of-m...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/libya-and-the-myth-of-h...
Libya had given up their quest to obtain nuclear weapons, yet they were still destroyed by the West. North Korea can read this history, so they dig in more fiercly to prevent a similar outcome.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/30/how-the-miserable-death-of-m...
Except the civil war started a month and a half before NATO intervention
And one of the civil war war chief, Abdelfattah Younès, was contacted by the DGSE before the civil war started according to Hillary's emails. The DGSE might have given training and advice even before that.
Also French and British diplomats lied about strikes on civil population by Kaddafi to the US and the UN (unclear if the SIS/Mi6 was played by its French counterpart or participated on forging evidence).
At least the warchief that met Sarkozy was killed within the week Hillary received the information that he worked way too closely with the French, it might be happenstance, but I'd rather believe the Cia was involved somehow (if not, they're way, way less competent than everybody think)
Check for Blumenthal emails on wikileaks, you'll get even more details.
Also French and British diplomats lied about strikes on civil population by Kaddafi to the US and the UN (unclear if the SIS/Mi6 was played by its French counterpart or participated on forging evidence).
At least the warchief that met Sarkozy was killed within the week Hillary received the information that he worked way too closely with the French, it might be happenstance, but I'd rather believe the Cia was involved somehow (if not, they're way, way less competent than everybody think)
Check for Blumenthal emails on wikileaks, you'll get even more details.
They actually never "came" out of civil war. They're still a fractured failed state.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/15/libya-and-moro...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/15/libya-and-moro...
I’m quite concerned all developed nations are going this way. Japan, ridiculous amounts of infrastructure, almost, no one around to keep it maintained within the next twenty to thirty years ?
The USA is in a similar situation, many qualified people are entering retirement age, yes we have immigration but I don’t think there would be a huge number of qualified civil engineers coming to the USA and getting qualified to work here.
The USA is in a similar situation, many qualified people are entering retirement age, yes we have immigration but I don’t think there would be a huge number of qualified civil engineers coming to the USA and getting qualified to work here.
As a fan of Plainfilly difficult on YouTube it seems like every major event is just like the ones before it like you say.
Limited resources is the mechanism through which many projects are mismanaged.
Weird that when we destroy a government and replace it with nothing infrastructure goes unmaintained.
In 1986, a major storm convulsed the region, damaging the dams and shearing soil from the ground. The structures were damaged, Dr. Ashoor said, but again they held. Despite the stresses, repairs were minimal. In 1998, the Libyan government commissioned a study that revealed cracks and fissures in the dams, said Attorney General Sadiq al-Soor. Nearly 10 years later, a Turkish company was finally contracted to repair the dams, the prosecutor added. But the government dragged its feet in paying, and the project got underway only in 2010... Just four months later, in 2011, Libyans marched against Colonel el-Qaddafi’s 42-year grip on power... In the tumult, work on the dam ceased...
From TFA.
Neglect has accrued over 37 years. Only 12 have elapsed since the fall of Qaddafi. NATO's direct involvement was for a brief period in 2011.
From TFA.
Neglect has accrued over 37 years. Only 12 have elapsed since the fall of Qaddafi. NATO's direct involvement was for a brief period in 2011.
> But the government dragged its feet in paying, and the project got underway only in 2010... Just four months later, in 2011, Libyans marched against Colonel el-Qaddafi’s 42-year grip on power... In the tumult, work on the dam ceased...
You yadda yadda'd the part where NATO destroyed the government.
You yadda yadda'd the part where NATO destroyed the government.
> NATO's direct involvement was for a brief period in 2011.
And USA's direct involvement in Nagasaki Japan by dropping Little Boy was for a brief period on August 6 1945.
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/little-boy-and-fat...
And USA's direct involvement in Nagasaki Japan by dropping Little Boy was for a brief period on August 6 1945.
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/little-boy-and-fat...
"After the defeat of Japan in World War II, the United States led the Allies in the occupation and rehabilitation of the Japanese state. Between 1945 and 1952, the U.S. occupying forces, led by General Douglas A. MacArthur, enacted widespread military, political, economic, and social reforms." [1]
[1] https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconst...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Resurrecting-Nagasaki-Reconstruction-...
[1] https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconst...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Resurrecting-Nagasaki-Reconstruction-...
Likewise has NATO been rebuilding Libya for the past decade and repairing infrastructure such as dams?
And if we had done nothing and let Khadaffi commit genocide you'd be complaining about it too.
The West just can't win. Everything is our fault.
The West just can't win. Everything is our fault.
What the hell are you talking about. Before the West attacked them they were the richest country in Africa with the highest literacy rates. There are slave markets in Libya now. A state completely destroyed with nothing but chaos in its wake. If there was any justice in the world Sarkozy and a certain nobel peace prize winner president would be in jail.
This is a terrible argument, the human suffering caused by “the West” trying to play police of other countries is insane. Name one time the US has intervened (outside of WW2) that helped the local population without causing a way bigger problem
Maybe ask a few South Koreans about that? Or folks who lived in West Berlin during the blockade, or ...
> Maybe ask a few South Koreans about that?
Like who, the hundreds of civilians the US massacred at No Gun Ri ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_massacre )? Or all the other civilians shot and bombed by the US Air Force, as internal documents and testimony attest to? Or the firebombing of cities by the US air force? Or the rapes and murders US military personnel have carried out in South Korea in the past decades? Or the decades of dictatorship in South Korea that the US military occupation shored up?
Like who, the hundreds of civilians the US massacred at No Gun Ri ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_massacre )? Or all the other civilians shot and bombed by the US Air Force, as internal documents and testimony attest to? Or the firebombing of cities by the US air force? Or the rapes and murders US military personnel have carried out in South Korea in the past decades? Or the decades of dictatorship in South Korea that the US military occupation shored up?
Might I ask if you're South Korean, or familiar with how much worse things have generally been in the DPRK?
Reminder: South Korea was a dictatorship into the late 1980s.
Quite true. OTOH, North Korea was also a dictatorship then. And still is today.
You don’t have to go overseas to ask questions like this.
Millions of Americans suffer everyday from poverty, homelessness and not having access to healthcare.
We spread the shit within our own borders too.
Looking at the candidates for the next election actually scares me. It’s not good.
Millions of Americans suffer everyday from poverty, homelessness and not having access to healthcare.
We spread the shit within our own borders too.
Looking at the candidates for the next election actually scares me. It’s not good.
Berlin air lift, 1948
Gaddafi wasn't committing genocide, and there was no indication whatsoever that he was going to. I'm supposed to see this fig leaf get trotted out in 2023.
Gadaffi threatened to sell oil in a currency other than the US dollar. That particular threat to the hegemon could not go unpunished. Without the dollar as the world reserve currency, a position firmly backed by the US army, there is no way the US could afford its current level of expenditure. A threat against the reserve status of the dollar is an existential threat to the US.
And so did Saddam Hussein, for that matter...
And so did Saddam Hussein, for that matter...
I really hate when these sorts of topics come up on HN because even though we fancy ourselves a group of evidence-driven, logical people we have a real blind spot for history. We in the west have spent the better part of the last 500 years finding deeply creative ways to keep the rest of the world under our rule. The world today is essentially the one we created.
And then a tragedy like this dam failure happens and we ask ourselves "How can the Libyans be so careless?" Indeed it must be their fault because they are less intelligent or more irresponsible or lazier than us. It's not because we have systematically made them poor and undermined any attempt of theirs to have some self determination. After all they've been free to do what they wanted since 2011! Before that even but they chose tyranny because they're stupid, not because the DGSE and CIA were in there creating dissident movements loyal to us.
And then a tragedy like this dam failure happens and we ask ourselves "How can the Libyans be so careless?" Indeed it must be their fault because they are less intelligent or more irresponsible or lazier than us. It's not because we have systematically made them poor and undermined any attempt of theirs to have some self determination. After all they've been free to do what they wanted since 2011! Before that even but they chose tyranny because they're stupid, not because the DGSE and CIA were in there creating dissident movements loyal to us.
We're the hegemon so it kinda is.
The dams were unmaintained for years before the Qadaffi government fell.
Even the nyt is willing to admit that work had begun on the dams before NATO started bombing, they feel obligated to let that tiny crack of truth in
An alternative take, labeled as a "non-imperial viewpoint", was given in a dead comment:
<https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/09/14/zlnn-s14.html>
<https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/09/14/zlnn-s14.html>
> today are backing a NATO war against Russia in Ukraine
The idea that there’s a war against Russia in another country that they invaded tells me all I need to know about how they write.
The idea that there’s a war against Russia in another country that they invaded tells me all I need to know about how they write.
I'm not sympathetic to the view. Thought I'd at least let it see daylight, however.
Which is often a strong disinfectant.
Which is often a strong disinfectant.
What are you disinfecting with a trash write up though?
I'm the submitter of the NY Times piece here. The WSWS link was submitted by a banned account (I have "showdead" enabled so I see such comments). In the interests of fairness and to remove the claim that that viewpoint is being suppressed, I provided it myself in my own comment.
I'm going to suggest that the HN readership should be sufficiently literate to compare the two pieces, the narratives, facts, and shadings presented, and if it chooses to do so, assess and/or identify slants, defects, or strengths of each piece.
Which might be more productive than attacking someone who's already said that they don't endorse the piece.
I'm going to suggest that the HN readership should be sufficiently literate to compare the two pieces, the narratives, facts, and shadings presented, and if it chooses to do so, assess and/or identify slants, defects, or strengths of each piece.
Which might be more productive than attacking someone who's already said that they don't endorse the piece.
Trash writeups are the norm nowadays. Any effective knowledge acquisition now therefore depends upon finely-tuned comparative analysis of the opposed, competing trash streams.
That, or the way they blame everything on NATO's intervention in a civil war, rather than the decades of corruption and oppression that led up to it. Or how they mention climate change without acknowledging Libya's role in it as a major oil exporter.
Sounds similar to the story about the explosives in Beirut harbor. Various parties had been yelling about the huge pile of Ammonium Nitrate in a warehouse for several years before it went off.
I have this impression that the area has not been well governed (for more than a few years a t a time) for millennia; because people in other areas of the world find it convenient that it not be. Living in the crossroads of the world means you get stepped over by everyone i reckon.
I have this impression that the area has not been well governed (for more than a few years a t a time) for millennia; because people in other areas of the world find it convenient that it not be. Living in the crossroads of the world means you get stepped over by everyone i reckon.
> I have this impression that the area has not been well governed (for more than a few years a t a time) for millennia; because people in other areas of the world find it convenient that it not be.
That’s an odd take. They’re a mess largely because of internal factors , not external ones. They were a mess before external interventions. Not saying it helped, but it’s not wholly responsible for the conditions either.
That’s an odd take. They’re a mess largely because of internal factors , not external ones. They were a mess before external interventions. Not saying it helped, but it’s not wholly responsible for the conditions either.
Not that odd of a take. It's difficult to have internal stability when you face externally-sourced "reorganizations" every generation or so.
Bah most of the modern states had event of traumatic reorganization, some in Europe less than two generation ago. Heck some g8 states like Italy were quartered under four different crowns less than 200 years ago.
And the worst part of this take is that is also denies agency for populations that had their own centennial empire at some point in history as if they were never more than paesant in some scheme. Thats deeply flawled in so many ways.
for those that downvoted this comment, lol open a book sometime.
And the worst part of this take is that is also denies agency for populations that had their own centennial empire at some point in history as if they were never more than paesant in some scheme. Thats deeply flawled in so many ways.
for those that downvoted this comment, lol open a book sometime.
200 years, 20 years, 2 years. What's the difference, really?
Internal stability helps prevent external forces.
Plenty of internally stable nations have been toppled by imperialism. It's not really a good metric for how well you can "prevent external forces."
It helps a lot.
Having a strong military with competitive technology and training is also very important.
Having strong alliances is even more critical.
Or in the modern era, having nukes. Which is why isolated dictatorship countries want them so badly.
Having a strong military with competitive technology and training is also very important.
Having strong alliances is even more critical.
Or in the modern era, having nukes. Which is why isolated dictatorship countries want them so badly.
True, Libya gave up their nukes to appease the same force that then turned around and bombed them. That doesn't undermine the strong impression I have that the intervention in Libya was the proximate cause of most of the modern crises in the Sahel, northern Iraq, with ISIS, "fortress Europe" response to migration, etc.
The US in particular, but also plenty of NATO and European powers, have not learned any lessons from the era of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: supporting the most barbaric reactionary forces in a bid to destabilize/topple a disfavored central government, leads to widespread suffering in the region, and eventually on home turf.
And the US nearly directly caused a similar dam catastrophe in recent memory: https://archive.md/20230606233936/https://www.nytimes.com/20...
Reading about that conflict should remind people that the US military uses the same tactics that Russia is using right now in Ukraine (indiscriminate shelling), except with air superiority, the bombardment is more varied and destructive.
The US in particular, but also plenty of NATO and European powers, have not learned any lessons from the era of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: supporting the most barbaric reactionary forces in a bid to destabilize/topple a disfavored central government, leads to widespread suffering in the region, and eventually on home turf.
And the US nearly directly caused a similar dam catastrophe in recent memory: https://archive.md/20230606233936/https://www.nytimes.com/20...
Reading about that conflict should remind people that the US military uses the same tactics that Russia is using right now in Ukraine (indiscriminate shelling), except with air superiority, the bombardment is more varied and destructive.
Libya had a nuclear weapons programme, and actively pursued development or acquisition of nuclear weapons from the 1970s until 2003 when all such work ceased.
But it never actually had nuclear weapons to the best of my knowledge.
See:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...>
<https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/giving-the-bomb-revis...>
But it never actually had nuclear weapons to the best of my knowledge.
See:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...>
<https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/giving-the-bomb-revis...>
You're right, I was wrong. I remember now that they had existent chemical weapons and a nuclear weapons program. Over time, my memory of talk of them "giving up their WMD" led to conflation and "giving up their nukes".
I think it's an important and interesting corrective, but fundamentally doesn't affect my argument about the intervention in Libya and its effects. It's just less ironic now.
I think it's an important and interesting corrective, but fundamentally doesn't affect my argument about the intervention in Libya and its effects. It's just less ironic now.
Respect for owning up Thank you for that.
That's been rare in this and a few related threads. I hope others might follow your lead.
I'd also like to point out that the situation is complicated, long-standing, has antecedents which trace back centuries, and has and is viewed as a chessboard for proxy battles by numerous foreign interests, as well as its own internal divisions.
And that some seem hell-bent on fighting ideological battles over a situation where 20,000 souls may well have been lost, which somewhat disappoints me.
That's been rare in this and a few related threads. I hope others might follow your lead.
I'd also like to point out that the situation is complicated, long-standing, has antecedents which trace back centuries, and has and is viewed as a chessboard for proxy battles by numerous foreign interests, as well as its own internal divisions.
And that some seem hell-bent on fighting ideological battles over a situation where 20,000 souls may well have been lost, which somewhat disappoints me.
Yes, I don't like meta-commentary (i.e., talking about other comments on HN without actually directly responding to them), but I have been angered to see so many "might is right", "we only destroyed them because they were so weak" comments in response to people noting any potential for responsibility beyond local mismanagement.
Agreed. The situation on the ground is complex.
That said: failed polities tend to result in failing infrastructures, increased stresses and strains (climate, economy, demographics, geopolitics, etc.) tend to interfere with effective polity, and as I've repeatedly pointed out in my comments to this thread, even in reasonably well-goverened and functioning societies, failures and close calls are disturbingly common.
The NY Times followed up with an article asking where else dams are at high risk. One point not raised in that article is what precautions can be taken, something I'd strongly encourage.
Even where a specific government is grossly incapable, both individuals and outside agencies in fact can anticipate and take steps to greatly reduce risks and harms from dam failures.
For starters, unlike numerous other mega-catastrophies, dams rarely fail utterly unexpectedly, both in the long term (problematic dams are problematic, often for decades, as here), or in the short term (severe weather events and dangerous geology and geography serve as triggers and amplifiers of risks).
Virtually all the risk comes in the initial flash flood and deluge itself. This risk is virtually completely mitigated by getting out of the way of and above the height of the flood. Knowing safe ground and/or creating evacuation facilities (strong construction, high walls, and out of the immediate water path) are both mitigations which are reasonably easily undertaken. Yes, vast areas may see property damage, but death, injury, and disease can be avoided.
Weather forecasting can predict dangerous storms often with up to a week's warning, and generally several days even where forecasting models perform poorly. Hours of advance notice can serve well. Radio and broadcast media remain effective for reaching large populations at low cost. Where local authorities fail to take these measures, foreign organisations, from broadcasters (BBC, VOA, DW, and commercial operators) to relief organisations (International Red Cross/Red Crescent) can both warn of and anticipate emergencies, warming up and pre-staging rescue and relief operations.
The second most vulnerable period is after the flood where people remain in damaged regions without infrastructure, most especially clean fresh water, sewerage capabilities, food, and medical care.
Note that unlike mass storms such as hurricanes, floods need not see wide-area evacuations. Rather than an entire county, state, or province, it's typically limited small settlements or specific neighbourhoods of larger cities which are most at-risk and which require evacuation. Moving only a few hundred metres may well be sufficient, or perhaps a few kilometres where a large flood-plain exists. Even in regions where transportation capabilities are limited, this is almost always possible.
The remaining issues are long-term recovery, rebuilding, and yes, tackling problematic dams and removing those which cannot be rehabilitated or have past any useful function.
That said: failed polities tend to result in failing infrastructures, increased stresses and strains (climate, economy, demographics, geopolitics, etc.) tend to interfere with effective polity, and as I've repeatedly pointed out in my comments to this thread, even in reasonably well-goverened and functioning societies, failures and close calls are disturbingly common.
The NY Times followed up with an article asking where else dams are at high risk. One point not raised in that article is what precautions can be taken, something I'd strongly encourage.
Even where a specific government is grossly incapable, both individuals and outside agencies in fact can anticipate and take steps to greatly reduce risks and harms from dam failures.
For starters, unlike numerous other mega-catastrophies, dams rarely fail utterly unexpectedly, both in the long term (problematic dams are problematic, often for decades, as here), or in the short term (severe weather events and dangerous geology and geography serve as triggers and amplifiers of risks).
Virtually all the risk comes in the initial flash flood and deluge itself. This risk is virtually completely mitigated by getting out of the way of and above the height of the flood. Knowing safe ground and/or creating evacuation facilities (strong construction, high walls, and out of the immediate water path) are both mitigations which are reasonably easily undertaken. Yes, vast areas may see property damage, but death, injury, and disease can be avoided.
Weather forecasting can predict dangerous storms often with up to a week's warning, and generally several days even where forecasting models perform poorly. Hours of advance notice can serve well. Radio and broadcast media remain effective for reaching large populations at low cost. Where local authorities fail to take these measures, foreign organisations, from broadcasters (BBC, VOA, DW, and commercial operators) to relief organisations (International Red Cross/Red Crescent) can both warn of and anticipate emergencies, warming up and pre-staging rescue and relief operations.
The second most vulnerable period is after the flood where people remain in damaged regions without infrastructure, most especially clean fresh water, sewerage capabilities, food, and medical care.
Note that unlike mass storms such as hurricanes, floods need not see wide-area evacuations. Rather than an entire county, state, or province, it's typically limited small settlements or specific neighbourhoods of larger cities which are most at-risk and which require evacuation. Moving only a few hundred metres may well be sufficient, or perhaps a few kilometres where a large flood-plain exists. Even in regions where transportation capabilities are limited, this is almost always possible.
The remaining issues are long-term recovery, rebuilding, and yes, tackling problematic dams and removing those which cannot be rehabilitated or have past any useful function.
As someone else already mentioned, this is especially ironic to bring up in the case of Libya because Libya gave up their nukes to appease Western powers. Then were invaded and toppled by those same powers later on.
Sorry, what's this "before external interventions" period you're thinking of? I thought maybe I was missing something, so I took a quick look at Libya's history and what I see is hundreds of years of "external factors".
Beirut, Lebanon
Yes, thanks for clarifying. That’s indeed what I’m talking about. I don’t know if that’s also applicable to Libya. I don’t know much about the history.
Ok, same question, then. What's the exact "before external interventions" period you are thinking of? Because again, I see hundreds of years of "external factors". Even more so than in Libya, really.
It takes a spectacular effort in intellectual dishonesty to say Lebanon hasn't been affected profoundly by external factors.
> I have this impression that the area has not been well governed (for more than a few years a t a time) for millennia; because...
If you specify millenia, the truth is the opposite:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya#Prehistoric_a...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya#Phoenician_an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya#Achaemenid_an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya#Roman_Libya
But things mostly went to crap ~975 years ago, when the ruling Zirid dynasty picked the wrong side in the Abbasid/Fatimid conflict...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zirid_dynasty#Apogee_in_Ifriqi...
If you specify millenia, the truth is the opposite:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya#Prehistoric_a...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya#Phoenician_an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya#Achaemenid_an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya#Roman_Libya
But things mostly went to crap ~975 years ago, when the ruling Zirid dynasty picked the wrong side in the Abbasid/Fatimid conflict...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zirid_dynasty#Apogee_in_Ifriqi...
Libya was quite well-governed before Gaddafi was ousted, the most developed country in the region.
Which area is that?
Eastern Libya isn't exactly close to Lebanon.
Eastern Libya isn't exactly close to Lebanon.
Quite.
I'd posted my own semi-informed assessment / speculation about the Derna dam failures in a thread yesterday, including the Beirut ammonia nitrate explosion as one of several similar incidents.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37523055>
The NY Times piece largely corresponds to what I'd written, filling in numerous details, e.g.:
In 1986, a major storm convulsed the region, damaging the dams and shearing soil from the ground. The structures were damaged, Dr. Ashoor said, but again they held. Despite the stresses, repairs were minimal. In 1998, the Libyan government commissioned a study that revealed cracks and fissures in the dams, said Attorney General Sadiq al-Soor. Nearly 10 years later, a Turkish company was finally contracted to repair the dams, the prosecutor added. But the government dragged its feet in paying, and the project got underway only in 2010... Just four months later, in 2011, Libyans marched against Colonel el-Qaddafi’s 42-year grip on power... In the tumult, work on the dam ceased...
So, significant damage was incurred thirty-seven years ago, a study was commissioned over a decade later, work didn't commence for another thirteen years, and stopped shortly after, 12 years ago. Meantime, climate has been degrading, affecting both precipitation patterns and geology which amplifies impacts of storms.
Technical debt accumulates.
And both autocratic and failing states respond poorly to long-term, slowly-evolving risk.
As far as who's to blame, I'd suggest that another take is to look around to see what other locations might have similarly-accumulating risks.
There's been strong contrast made to disaster response in Libya vs. Morocco, despite some governmental dysfunction in the latter's case. Social cohesion and individual response in Morocco has been called out as specifically effective.
Failing states, complex infrastructure, and latent risks devolving from those, seem to me likely elsewhere in North Africa, have already been evidenced in Pakistan (truly massive flooding in 2022), are a factor in Ukraine (another dam failure, this tied to military aggression by Russia). There's a very high-risk dam in Mosul, Iraq, which has made headlines for years. Sri Lanka's economic collapse earlier this year would suggest that infrastructure maintenance may be lapsing. Afghanistan has numerous dams and hydrological projects which are now under the control of the Taliban, who've not proven to be especially capable administrators. Syria is another region with ongoing conflict. I suspect there's considerable rotting infrastructure in Russia. China is a country that's seen absolutely incredible growth and development in the past two decades, though with highly questionable quality and inspections practices.
As I'd noted in my earlier comment, even in wealthy, advanced, and reasonably institutionally-sound countries such as the US there've been numerous dam failures and near-failures over the past decade.
I'd posted my own semi-informed assessment / speculation about the Derna dam failures in a thread yesterday, including the Beirut ammonia nitrate explosion as one of several similar incidents.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37523055>
The NY Times piece largely corresponds to what I'd written, filling in numerous details, e.g.:
In 1986, a major storm convulsed the region, damaging the dams and shearing soil from the ground. The structures were damaged, Dr. Ashoor said, but again they held. Despite the stresses, repairs were minimal. In 1998, the Libyan government commissioned a study that revealed cracks and fissures in the dams, said Attorney General Sadiq al-Soor. Nearly 10 years later, a Turkish company was finally contracted to repair the dams, the prosecutor added. But the government dragged its feet in paying, and the project got underway only in 2010... Just four months later, in 2011, Libyans marched against Colonel el-Qaddafi’s 42-year grip on power... In the tumult, work on the dam ceased...
So, significant damage was incurred thirty-seven years ago, a study was commissioned over a decade later, work didn't commence for another thirteen years, and stopped shortly after, 12 years ago. Meantime, climate has been degrading, affecting both precipitation patterns and geology which amplifies impacts of storms.
Technical debt accumulates.
And both autocratic and failing states respond poorly to long-term, slowly-evolving risk.
As far as who's to blame, I'd suggest that another take is to look around to see what other locations might have similarly-accumulating risks.
There's been strong contrast made to disaster response in Libya vs. Morocco, despite some governmental dysfunction in the latter's case. Social cohesion and individual response in Morocco has been called out as specifically effective.
Failing states, complex infrastructure, and latent risks devolving from those, seem to me likely elsewhere in North Africa, have already been evidenced in Pakistan (truly massive flooding in 2022), are a factor in Ukraine (another dam failure, this tied to military aggression by Russia). There's a very high-risk dam in Mosul, Iraq, which has made headlines for years. Sri Lanka's economic collapse earlier this year would suggest that infrastructure maintenance may be lapsing. Afghanistan has numerous dams and hydrological projects which are now under the control of the Taliban, who've not proven to be especially capable administrators. Syria is another region with ongoing conflict. I suspect there's considerable rotting infrastructure in Russia. China is a country that's seen absolutely incredible growth and development in the past two decades, though with highly questionable quality and inspections practices.
As I'd noted in my earlier comment, even in wealthy, advanced, and reasonably institutionally-sound countries such as the US there've been numerous dam failures and near-failures over the past decade.
This is a mirror situation of a dam near Mosul in Iraq, about which everybody was saying it is going to collapse, but to date it did not.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam
This one event may have caused more deaths globally than nuclear power plant accidents.
Usually structures will give some signs of impending failure, but also repair or remediation is usually very expensive and disruptive, and there are thousands of crumbling structures that require it. Only in retrospect is it obvious where we should have concentrated our limited resources.