The Libyan government, backed by the parliament, declared a state of extreme emergency in the city of Zliten in the west of the country on Tuesday, due to the rising groundwater levels.
The government urged all relevant authorities to take the necessary extraordinary measures to deal with the situation, including protecting the city’s residents from the hazards of this water and helping them cope with its effects.
The Energy and Natural Resources Committee of the Libyan parliament called for an immediate and urgent intervention by the Libyan government and all competent authorities to solve the problem and avoid “a humanitarian or environmental disaster” in a statement.
The city of Zliten, located in western Libya, has been experiencing a strange phenomenon for years: groundwater gushing upwards to damage buildings and agricultural land. The phenomenon has worsened in recent weeks, forcing families to leave the city.
Observers believe that the artificial river has increased the groundwater reserves on the coast, which caused cracks in the earth’s layers.
Mostafa Al-Bahbah, head of the Crisis and Emergency Management Committee in Zliten Municipality, confirmed that the crisis of rising groundwater levels in some areas in Zliten Municipality was still ongoing and that some families had left their homes because of this problem. He said that the scale of the disaster was very large.
Al-Bahbah said that they were continuing the water withdrawal operations, especially in some areas that were about 3 kilometers away from the sea, where the water level had risen to two meters. He said that they had asked the government to allocate an urgent and emergency budget to address the problem.
The Zliten region is one of the areas located in the northwest of Libya on the Mediterranean coast, which depends heavily on groundwater in most areas, making it the main source of water there.
