The lethal negligence of politicians in Morocco and Libya

FIRST the ground shook; then the skies opened. Just before midnight on September 8th an earthquake struck Morocco with a magnitude of 6.8, the strongest there in more than a century. The shallow epicentre was south-west of Marrakesh, under the Atlas mountains, a soaring range that bisects the country. Hilltop villages were reduced to heaps of rubble. At least 2,900 people were killed.

Two days later Storm Daniel, a Mediterranean cyclone, made landfall in eastern Libya. It dumped as much as one metre of rainfall in a single day—two to three times more than the region sees in a typical year. In the port city of Derna, which sits at the end of a long wadi, or valley, two dams burst. Floodwaters wiped out entire neighbourhoods. The death toll has already crossed 5,300, with many thousands more missing. More than 10% of the city’s population may have drowned.