Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 176 posts

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#131

Post by thedrbrian »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #5

Heartbreaking. The tone of all observers is that this is as much a failure of governance as an environmental catastrophe. As everyone who was at Burning Man learned, plumbing and drainage is the basis of civilisation. Letting it go to rack and ruin is storing up misery, so it worries me that in the UK we've had 20 years of government that has effectively "washed its hands" of water management.

>Letting it go to rack and ruin is storing up misery, so it worries me that in the UK we've had 20 years of government that has effectively "washed its hands" of water management.

interesting twitter thread here.

https://x.com/LoftusSteve/status/1659637753158545414?s=20

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#132

Post by mymac »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #95
mymac wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> This is naked Russian propaganda masquerading as enlightened discourse. OSCE via Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/osce-reports-surge-numb... Unless Reuters is "naked Russian propaganda" now, there was definitely an uptick in kinetic activity in the Donbas, with most of it falling on the Separatist side of the line of control.

Russia has given each and every excuse that you could possibly come up with in 2014 and again in 2022. If you're a defense industry consultant I'd expect you to be more than conversant with the run-up to the second episode of this war and not to swallow such things hook, line and sinker.

Note that nowhere in that article does it say that the Ukrainian side did that. For all we know this was a provocation, as Russia is won't to do. Alternative explanations have been present many times and none of them have stuck.

Also note that there was an endless build-up prior to the second phase of this invasion which had absolutely nothing to do with that particular incident even if it was done by the Ukrainian side, which I highly doubt given the fact that it was one of the pretexts used.

Finally: in that region there have been many actions by either side and no matter what: the Ukrainians are well within their right to kick out an invader, the myth of the separatists has been debunked solidly, until the little green men showed up there was no meaningful separatist activity.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#133

Post by mymac »

marcosdumay wrote: post #123
mymac wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Root cause analysis is complex for a reason. Separating out contributing causes from root causes is difficult and sometimes even impossible. Would this dam have failed eventually? Probably yes, on a long enough time-scale. Would it have failed now if not for that storm? Probably no. Note that even in the developed West there are plenty of pieces of infrastructure at risk because of climate driven extremities.

Would it have failed if it was properly maintained? I bet somebody knows this. And that is the question that imposes culpability, not the ones you asked. But if you are not going for culpability and just assumes everybody is honestly trying to improve, the question to ask is "was it properly maintained?"

Infrastructure needs maintenance, culpability only makes sense if there are enough funds for such maintenance and if there is an organization level compatible with the kind and scope of the work. I wouldn't make any assumptions about that in the case of Lybia.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#134

Post by mcv »

f6v wrote: post #110
mcv wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's why we now get the piecemeal support for Ukraine. No real intervention, but we've got to do something, but not too much, but not too little either.

Sending your military personnel to enter a missile flight plan is hardly “something”. Next step is launching said missiles from NATO airspace.

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Surely getting your own military personal involved is not entirely nothing? Also, launching missiles from NATO airspace does not have to be the next step.

Two things that sound to me like obvious next steps is sending NATO air defense with NATO personel into Ukraine to provide better cover from Russian missiles. And after that, a no-fly zone. Actual combat support is probably too much to ask.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#135

Post by polski-g »

misja111 wrote: post #18
totetsu wrote: post #2

When ever I see something like this I can’t help but wonder if it would have happened if EU and America hadn’t assassinated Gaddafi. I know that’s kind of a knee jerk reaction, but really what is happening in lybia now? What’s the plan? Protect the oil pipelines and just don’t look too close anymore?

> .. if EU and America hadn’t assassinated Gaddafi Gaddafi was assassinated by his own people. America and a few European countries gave military support to the rebels after Gaddafi had started trying to violently suppress the rebellion of his people, that is true. If they wouldn't have done that, he might have succeeded in murdering enough of his people to stay in power, who knows.

Abraham Lincoln violently suppressed a rebellion of his people.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#136

Post by r00fus »

segmondy wrote: post #78
totetsu wrote: post #2

When ever I see something like this I can’t help but wonder if it would have happened if EU and America hadn’t assassinated Gaddafi. I know that’s kind of a knee jerk reaction, but really what is happening in lybia now? What’s the plan? Protect the oil pipelines and just don’t look too close anymore?

These dams haven't been maintained since 2002. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/13/why-did-dernas-dams...

If a working government existed (ie, before the US/EU destroyed a functioning one in the 2010s) then they might have been able to fix it in the past 10 years.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#137

Post by chrisandchris »

thedrbrian wrote: post #131
nonrandomstring wrote: post #5

Heartbreaking. The tone of all observers is that this is as much a failure of governance as an environmental catastrophe. As everyone who was at Burning Man learned, plumbing and drainage is the basis of civilisation. Letting it go to rack and ruin is storing up misery, so it worries me that in the UK we've had 20 years of government that has effectively "washed its hands" of water management.

>Letting it go to rack and ruin is storing up misery, so it worries me that in the UK we've had 20 years of government that has effectively "washed its hands" of water management. interesting twitter thread here. https://x.com/LoftusSteve/status/1659637753158545414?s=20

Twitter threads already were difficult to read. Now it seems I don't get to read anything without an account at all?

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#138

Post by Jensson »

sebazzz wrote: post #70
mymac wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Root cause analysis is complex for a reason. Separating out contributing causes from root causes is difficult and sometimes even impossible. Would this dam have failed eventually? Probably yes, on a long enough time-scale. Would it have failed now if not for that storm? Probably no. Note that even in the developed West there are plenty of pieces of infrastructure at risk because of climate driven extremities.

> Note that even in the developed West there are plenty of pieces of infrastructure at risk because of climate driven extremities. Wasn't there a failure in Scandinavia recently?

"Dam failing" and "dam failing unexpectedly" are not comparable situations.

Floods happens all the time in the west, people dying from floods however is rare since when they happen we know why and how and when it will happen so we can evacuate people.

Libya failed to warn the people here, that is why so many died, that is the most significant failure and should have been the easiest part, it shows severe problems with their management of the dam. They should have known how much stress the dam can handle, and that this storm was likely to make it fail, and evacuate the people when failure was close.

In the west we would just say "the dam will likely fail due to bad maintenance", the destruction will be costly but lives wont be lost, and in many cases we can prematurely destroy parts of the dam to avoid destroying downstream infrastructure and that way come out of it almost scot free.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#139

Post by Jensson »

hnbad wrote: post #75
mymac wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Root cause analysis is complex for a reason. Separating out contributing causes from root causes is difficult and sometimes even impossible. Would this dam have failed eventually? Probably yes, on a long enough time-scale. Would it have failed now if not for that storm? Probably no. Note that even in the developed West there are plenty of pieces of infrastructure at risk because of climate driven extremities.

Notably a large number of bridges of the German autobahn was recently found to be dangerously unmaintained to the point where the only recommended recourse was to tear them down and rebuild them. Luckily Germany doesn't normally see significant earthquakes and the storms apparently haven't been severe enough to destroy any of them. In my part of Germany we had a severe rain storm this week that caused local flooding…

> Luckily Germany doesn't normally see significant earthquakes and the storms apparently haven't been severe enough to destroy any of them.

It isn't luck, if Germany had earthquakes they would have built the bridges differently. You don't build things to handle situations that doesn't happen.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#140

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

pjc50 wrote: post #40
nonrandomstring wrote: post #5

Heartbreaking. The tone of all observers is that this is as much a failure of governance as an environmental catastrophe. As everyone who was at Burning Man learned, plumbing and drainage is the basis of civilisation. Letting it go to rack and ruin is storing up misery, so it worries me that in the UK we've had 20 years of government that has effectively "washed its hands" of water management.

It was remarkable how one of the first movements after withdrawing from the EU was to change the rules so water companies could dump sewage and render watercourses unsafe and polluted.

Sounds like regulatory capture was already deeply burrowed in the UK.

This doesn't sound remarkable in the sense that you could play industry roulette, and its just another industry could have bought what they wanted instead of the water lobby. The y seemed to bet on brexit and won big. There were likely EU lobby losers on the other side, likely buying influence for years for EU rules to favor them, and we don't know them because they did not happen overnight or they were bigger in scope.

So the questions are,

1) what are the flipsides ? Which EU regulatory captures became undone as a result of brexit , and are massively benefitting the brits ?

2) regulatory capture is not new. So what are the brits doing about it ?

Post reply on HN