Muammar Gaddafi's Great Man-Made River of Libya

 

Muammar Gaddafi's Great Man-Made River of Libya

Libya built the world's largest river inside the Sahara Desert, how did it do that where not even a drop of water was available, how did it bring millions of cubic meters of fresh water; this project was also given the name of the 8th wonder of the world, but then such a thing was done that today no one even wants to discuss about it.

Muammar Gaddafi's Great Man-Made River of Libya

Friends, God has blessed the whole world with limitless resources, but there is no doubt that these resources have not been divided equally. Therefore, one has to work hard to acquire these resources.

If we talk about water, 71 percent of the world is water, but we cannot use it. Out of this, the water that is capable of use is fresh, only 3 percent, and out of that, 2.5 percent is stored in glaciers, the atmosphere, and on land. It is only 0.5 percent of the remaining water that is at our disposal. This 0.5 percent of water is also not distributed equally.

Some countries are such where there is no water left to drink, now there are many solutions to this problem, somewhere salt is extracted from sea water to make it drinkable, somewhere water is collected by cloud seeding i.e. artificial rain, and the situation of South Africa had become so bad that they even made a plan to bring an ice barge cape town from Antarctica.

Today, we will discuss a solution that is very difficult to believe. About 50 years ago, Muammar Gaddafi not only conceived a plan to build the world's best-made man-made river in a dry country like Libya, but also demonstrated it in reality. Even if Libya is shown on the satellite map, it does not look like a dot of greenery where rain is so rare that people there do not see rain for many years. In such a situation, how did Libya make all this possible?

99 percent of the area of ​​Libya is covered by desert. You must have already imagined the heat experienced here. The heat is so intense that even the water kept in open air evaporates, and in some areas of Libya, there is no trace of rain for 10-10 years. In terms of crude oil, Libya has more oil reserves than the United States, but in comparison to fresh water, there is not even a single natural river here.

In the 1950’s when oil was being explored in Libya, along with oil, a unique treasure was also found, and this treasure was the Sahara water. The 1500000 cubic fresh water beneath the place where people thirst for water was no less than a treasure. This is a kind of fossil water, which is called the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer system. If we guess, the water found beneath the Sahara is so much that even if our whole world uses it for 40 years, it will not be finished. And the good thing was that Nubian water is found in the east of the Sahara, especially where Libya is established today.

From that time, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was not going to miss this opportunity at any cost. His idea was that if this water from the Sahara were somehow taken out and supplied to all the cities of Libya, then it would be a great feat in the history of Libya and the Sahara. As easy as it was to make this plan, it was as complicated to bring it to fruition. From initial research, it was found that Nubian water is found in the south of Libya and that the major cities here are found in the north of Libya, i.e., the Mediterranean, at a cost. This decision was not easy, especially when an estimate was made for making an artificial river; it was found that to supply water to every city, they needed a 2820 km long river. I had to leave. This decision is as much as taking two trips from Delhi to Mumbai, or from Islamabad to Karachi.

Muammar Gaddafi's Great Man-Made River of Libya

When these estimates were told to Muammar Gaddafi, he did not hesitate but another issue came up that in the scorching heat of the Sahara, where water evaporates abroad, the meaning of such a long open-air river was that before reaching the cities, the water would evaporate and go away; now the solution to this problem was that a 2820 km long river would have to be made underground; for this work, bare pipes were required and each pipe should be 13 feet thick and its weight should be 80 ton and 5 lac such pipes should be made, only then would a 2820 km long river be built; for building so many pipes, people went to Libya Some factories were constructed where the production of these unique pipes started.

These were pipes made of concrete and steel, and in one pipe, 8 km of steel wire was used, which means that if the steel wires to be used in all the pipes are sold straightaway, then the earth's grid can be turned around by 100 days. We are talking about the 1980's when the work of making pipes on a mass scale had started, these pipes were loaded in trucks and delivered to the construction site but the issue was that at that time there was no road network in Libya, hence a South Korean company was called and phase one of a 3200 km long road was built, after that digging work was started because the pipes were to be laid 20 feet below the ground and there was no involvement in the entire project. 3 Arab cubic feet of sand and stone were dug out from the ground; whatever work was done till then was phase one of this mega project.

5 billion dollars were spent, after which in 1989 work on phase 2 was started, in which the first water pipes were to be laid till Tripoli, which is the capital of Libya and the largest city here. For this work, wells were dug at two places at Jabal Hasuna, and water was pumped from a depth of about 200 meters. From here, the pipes were laid to Tripoli, which was a 700 km long line. In stage 3, wells were dug at the place of Kufra, and from there the pipes were laid till Benghazi, which is the second largest city of Libya. This distance was 1000km long in its second stage. Both these networks were to be connected; 5 big reservoirs were also built in the Great Man-Made River of Libya; these reservoirs were used to store excess water.

The diameter of these reservoirs was kept at 1 km, which still exists today. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, this project of Libya is the largest irrigation system in the world, along with the world's largest man-made river. The water produced through this project is not only used for drinking by 6.7 million people of Libya, but 70 percent of it fulfills the requirements of agriculture and industries. Due to this project, Greenland territory in the north and west of Libya was expanded. Now it is obvious that the expenditure incurred in building such a big mega project would also have been fine. According to different data, more than 25 billion was spent on this project, and the biggest thing is that Libya completed all 3 phases on time. Apart from financial support from other countries, a team from UNESCO also trained the engineers and workers who worked on the project.

Some experts say that the water from the Nubian sandstone aquifer can be used for at least 100 years. If Libya produces fresh water through desalination, it would cost 10 times more. The Made Man River of Libya was talked about all over the world. Every news agency was only covering this project. But unfortunately, on 22nd July 2011, civil war started in Libya. Muammar Gaddafi was killed, and a NATO air strike destroyed the pipe factories built for Phase 4, and the construction work of the pipeline project was stopped. During the 2nd civil War that took place from 2014 to 2020, the entire infrastructure was ignored, and no attention was paid to the repairs and maintenance of the pipes, due to which the water supply was disturbed many times.

On 10 April 2020, some militants captured the station that supplied water to the Libyan capital Tripoli and closed it down and today the condition in Libya is such that the phases which were already completed are not being maintained, neither is there water left in Tripoli nor in Benghazi and if we talk about the reservoirs, they have become empty to a great extent where water was drawn happily in one door and today Libya is forced to face a severe water shortage.

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