Quite. I'd posted my own semi-informed assessment / speculation about the Derna dam failures in a thread yesterday, including the Beirut ammonia nitrate explos

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 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.