The research team found that climate change, civil war and international sanctions all contributed to the devastation caused by the destruction of two dams that released an estimated 30 million cubic metres of water into the city of Derna. 

A team of researchers at World Weather Attribution raced to understand the causes of the disaster.

Their report found that climate change made the levels of rainfall that devastated the Mediterranean in early September up to 50 times more likely in Libya and up to 10 times more likely in Greece. The team also stressed that Derna residents were made more vulnerable due to factors such as building homes on floodplains, chopping down trees and not maintaining dams.

“The interaction of these factors, and the very heavy rain that was worsened by climate change, created the extreme destruction [in Libya],” the scientists wrote. 

Mark Zeitoun, director-general of the research centre Geneva Water Hub, called it “the curse...