An international study led by Dr. Moshe Armon of the Fredy and Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, published in Science Advances, found that the deadly floods in Derna in Libya in 2023, which claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people, were the result of serious planning flaws rather than a rare natural event. The researchers showed that that the dams that burst had been planned based on an underestimate of the strength of possible flooding, and note that the findings are also relevant for Israel, particularly in an era of climate change and of regular flooding in cities.

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Anatomy of a foreseeable disaster: Lessons from the 2023 dam-breaching flood in Derna, Libya | Science Advances