Libya's Attorney General has ordered the arrest of eight current and former government officials while the investigation into the collapse of two dams earlier this month, which caused thousands of deaths, continues.

The two dams on the outskirts of the city of Derna (east) broke on September 11, after being flooded by storm Daniel, which caused heavy rains in eastern Libya.

According to Lusa, failures in the two structures led to the flooding of around a quarter of the city, local authorities said, destroying entire neighborhoods and sweeping people out to sea.

Government authorities and humanitarian agencies have estimated that between 4,000 and 11,000 people died in the disaster. The bodies of many of those killed are still under the rubble or in the Mediterranean Sea, according to search teams.

Meanwhile, in a statement, the office of Attorney General al-Sidiq al-Sour said that prosecutors heard on Sunday from seven former and current employees of the Water Resources Authority and the Dams Management Authority on allegations of mismanagement, negligence and mistakes contributed to the disaster.

The mayor of Derna, Abdel-Moneim al-Ghaithi, who was sacked after the disaster, was also questioned, the statement said.

Prosecutors have ordered that the eight people be detained while the investigation is ongoing, the statement added.

The dams were built by a Yugoslav construction company in the 1970s above the Wadi Derna, a river valley that divides the city.

A report by a state audit agency in 2021 noted that the two dams had not been repaired, despite the allocation of more than two million dollars for this purpose in 2012 and 2013.

Two weeks after the disaster, local and international teams are still searching for bodies among the rubble and under the mud. They are also scouring the Mediterranean Sea off Derna in search of bodies swept away by the flood.

The floods have damaged around a third of Derna's homes and infrastructure, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The authorities have removed people from the most affected part of the city, leaving only search teams and ambulances.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that more than 4,000 deaths had been recorded, including foreigners, but the previous death toll given by the head of the Libyan Red Crescent was 11,300. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that at least 9,000 people are still missing.

The storm hit other areas in eastern Libya, including the towns of Bayda, Susa, Marj and Shahatt. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in the region and have been housed in schools and other government buildings.