TY - JOUR
T1 - Aging dams, political instability, poor human decisions and climate change: Recipe for human disaster
AU - Shirzaei, Manoochehr
AU - Vahedifard, Farshid
AU - Sadhasivam, Nitheshnirmal
AU - Ohenhen, Leonard
AU - Dasho, Oluwaseyi
AU - Tiwari, Ashutosh
AU - Werth, Susanna
AU - Azhar, Mohammed
AU - Zhao, Yunxia
AU - Nicholls, Robert J.
AU - Aghakouchak, Amir
N1 - Data availability statement: No datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
Acknowledgements: A grant from DoD supported this research. The building footprint is provided by Google Research (https://data.humdata.org/dataset/buildings-footprint-floods-derna-libya). European Space Agency, Sentinel-1 SAR images are obtained through Alaska Satellite Facilities at https://asf.alaska.edu/. The InSAR deformation datasets and distortion angles generated in this study are available at https://doi.org/10.7294/25374619.
PY - 2025/1/16
Y1 - 2025/1/16
N2 - In Derna, Libya, a record-breaking storm and subsequent dam failures on September 10, 2023, caused over 11,000 deaths. Analyzing satellite data from 2016–2023, we found 1.8 mm/yr of differential settlement in dams contributed to their failure, and flooding damaged ~8570 buildings. We argue that the interplay of aging infrastructure, political instability, climate change, and human decisions drove this disaster, stressing the need for a holistic ‘healthcare’ management approach to prevent future catastrophes.
AB - In Derna, Libya, a record-breaking storm and subsequent dam failures on September 10, 2023, caused over 11,000 deaths. Analyzing satellite data from 2016–2023, we found 1.8 mm/yr of differential settlement in dams contributed to their failure, and flooding damaged ~8570 buildings. We argue that the interplay of aging infrastructure, political instability, climate change, and human decisions drove this disaster, stressing the need for a holistic ‘healthcare’ management approach to prevent future catastrophes.
U2 - 10.1038/s44304-024-00056-1
DO - 10.1038/s44304-024-00056-1
M3 - Comment/debate
SN - 2948-2100
VL - 2
JO - npj Natural Hazards
JF - npj Natural Hazards
IS - 1
M1 - 5
ER -