Petteri Taalas told journalists the country could have issued warnings.

“Emergency management forces would have been able to carry out the evacuation of the people, and we could have avoided most of the human casualties,” the AFP news agency quotes him as saying.

Libya has two rival governments, which has made it difficult to respond to disasters in a swift, co-ordinated manner.

Each government announced separate precautionary measures, as the recent storm that caused the flooding headed towards the country.