Libya’s floods are result of climate crisis meeting a failed state

Years of neglect and mismanagement played a major role in how the disaster in Derna unfolded. Photograph: Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

When the climate crisis meets a failed state, the outcome is the kind of disaster that Libya is witnessing in Derna.

Any city would have struggled with the extraordinary level of precipitation that Storm Daniel visited upon Libya’s northern coast. In its earlier, milder form, the storm caused severe damage in Greece before it crossed the Mediterranean.