19 ms·
Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
- zazen 11y agoThe article says the Iraqi government has hired an Italian contractor to reinforce and maintain the dam. This presumably makes the massive-disaster scenario described in the Guardian's rather clickbaity headline somewhat less likely. Edit: fair enough, it might not be as simple as just hiring some engineers to fix it; I hadn't considered the location. But still: when the news event that happened yesterday is that some engineers were hired to fix the dam, I think it's a bit disingenuous to therefore run a story with a headline saying "dam on brink of collapse, may kill one million."
- moonshinefe 11y agoNot necessarily. Mosul is ISIS's stronghold and what happens if they don't take too kindly to the 450 Italian troops + workers over there working on the dam that's next to their main city? It seems quite against their self-interests to stop the work, but you never know with this level of crazy.
- bgilroy26 11y agoThey ought to be able to finance the project by borrowing against the proceeds of the movie they make about the whole ordeal
- Vespasian 11y agoFighting with heavy weaponry (such as artillery) around the dam is probably not in their interest either (potentially flooding their 'capital'). Shells tend to have a negative effect on structural stability. On the the other hand obviously while they were holding the dam it was apparently free for all machinery looting season, which is not to clever if you plan to establish your headquarter downstream.
- afarrell 11y agoThe problem is that the Italian contractor refuses to work unless the Italian army is allowed to send a unit to defend them. Last I'd heard, the Iraqi government is withholding their approval for this.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y agoAnd the problem of getting workforce and the required plant to the location in the middle of a low level civil war.
- mercurial 11y agoConsidering the propension of the Iraqi military to run away when faced with ill-equipped, outnumbered opponents, I can't blame the contractor.
- arethuza 11y agoSome Soviet engineers ended up having a particularly nasty end when they were captured while working on the infamous Kajaki dam in Afghanistan.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sentenza 11y agoDrain it. Seriously. Any other response is either unrealistically expensive/complicated or reckless. Sure, the Italian company could maintain it if they aren't attacked by ISIS, but that is a big if when failure is immanent.
- bjackman 11y agoRemember that the sluice gates are seized. Obviously they should still drain it but it's not as simple as making the call.
- foota 11y agoHow could they drain it?
- hyperion2010 11y agoDig an alternate channel.
- foota 11y agoI'm not sure it would be quite so simple. The article mentions the reason that they can't just open one gate is because the asymmetric draining would be harmful to the dam. It's possible that any sort of adhoc draining would adversely affect the dam. Not to mention quickly building a secure tunnel to handle the water pressure at that depth sounds like no mean feat.
- acveilleux 11y agoThat's called a spillway BTW and the problem with spillways is erosion and the energy of the water. So spillways have to be made of reinforced concrete or similarly strong materials when the local rock isn't hard enough and they have to be shaped to dissipate the energy. The spillway of the Mosul dam is made of concrete the problem with it appears to be that it allows too high a water level for the dam in its current shape even when fully open.
- 11y ago
- foota 11y agoThis picture on wikipedia of the dam has a really beautiful contrast between the water and the land around it (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/MosulDam-July2012-01.JPG/1920px-MosulDam-July2012-01.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Mo...) Also draws attention to the fact that there's a massive amount of water behind the dam. edit: wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam, to save you the effort of googling :)
- autopov 11y agoFor more context, at just over 11 cubic km it's roughly twice as large as Shasta Lake[0]—California's largest reservoir. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shasta_Lake#/media/File%3A6507-ShastaLakeFull.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shasta_Lake#/media/File%3A65...
- LoSboccacc 11y ago> formerly known as Saddam Dam such an opportunity lost to call it SadDam
- 11y ago
- jrockway 11y agoJohn Oliver did a pretty good piece on infrastructure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8 No politician gets to cut a ribbon with a giant pair of scissors when they fund routine maintenance. So why bother.
- ajuc 11y agoThe fix seems easy - do cut the ribbon in such cases.
- jrockway 11y agoThat was the thought that went through my mind when I first watched that piece. I think I'm unusually excited by incremental improvement and routine maintenance though.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoMe too. There is something wrong with us. :)
- ajuc 11y agoYou're not alone. http://www.skyscrapercity.com/ http://www.skyscrapercity.com/ :)
- digi_owl 11y agoYou also get this with corporations, as new stuff is filed as an investment while maintenance is under expenses.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoAccounting practices make everything bizarre.
- VeejayRampay 11y agoThey should call the Dutch. They're the best at dams. EDIT: Retrospectively, my comment is not necessarily appropriate. As much as the Dutch are good at building dams, it's obvious that the situation is dire and has more to do with security and military conflict. My apologies for being insensitive.
- BetaCygni 11y agoWe're very good at dikes. We don't have much practice with hydroelectric dams though ;)
- brohee 11y agoIraq was altogether a different country when it was built, but infrastructure that can fail killing 1M people unless maintained 24/7 by a 300 person crew sounds like it has way too many failure scenario for comfort. AFAIK you can abandon the Hoover dam and it will still be there in 500 years. It looks like the Mosul dam engineers couldn't achieve remotely the same result given the soil it's built on, but there must have been overwhelming reasons to build it despite the risks...
- foota 11y agoPerhaps you meant to say "couldn't achieve..."?
- brohee 11y agoIndeed ;)
- x0x0 11y agoMy understanding: Russian engineers warned Saddam it could not be built there, but he ordered it done anyway to partially cut off Kurdish rebel movement by creating a lake. See eg https://web.archive.org/web/20140219214451/http://www.shafaaq.com/en/stories/8461-expert-holds-saddam-hussein-responsibility-if-a-dam-collapses-in-iraq-.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140219214451/http://www.shafaa... The whole thing is an utter clusterfuck. An American civil engineering prof is saying the sole possible solution is a cutoff wall that, by the way, has to not only be 800 ft below the embankment but is significantly deeper than any other such cutoff wall ever built. And it must be constructed in the middle of Iraq under a dam in serious danger of collapsing. http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/03/will-italy-be-able-to-fix-the-worlds-most-dangerous-dam/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/03/will-italy-be-able-to-fi... And finally another interesting article; the alternative to a cutoff wall is building a second $2B dam downstream. There's a good graphic half way down the article of the problems with the Mosul dam. Of course, that's not just $2B but at minimum several years away... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/02/mosul-dam-engineers-warn-it-could-fail-at-any-time-killing-1m-people http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/02/mosul-dam-engin...
- x0x0 11y agoThere's a paper by some professors at Mosul Univ discussing the dam. Apparently it's built on gypsum and has been patched by continuous filling with cement; the current problems stem from incorrect construction in the 80s. The professors game out 5 catastrophic failures. They range from a wall of water 25m high that would eventually cover over 50% of Mosul city (high) to a mere 34% of the city (best case.) Maximal water levels would be reached within 6 hours. Reading between the lines, I get the sense there is no serious and/or realistic evacuation plan. Not to mention I think Mosul is ruled by ISIS, so coordination with the Iraqi government and/or external dam repair personnel is presumably limited. edit: with much of Baghdad itself under 4m water within 3 days after collapse. Which probably allows time for evacuation at least, though that's small comfort. http://www.iwtc.info/2009_pdf/4-1.pdf http://www.iwtc.info/2009_pdf/4-1.pdf
- mlonkibjuyhv 11y agoThis sounds like biblical history in the making...
- mavdi 11y agoSomething tells me they want to use the risk of a failing dam as a weapon to pursue Mosul population to rise against ISIS. Or that they just don't care if 1M+ died in an ISIS stronghold.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- venomsnake 11y agoI think chances of ISIS themselves blowing it up when pushed away are greater. Those guys are crazy. Not very competent, but crazy.
- tomjen3 11y agoHow difficult is it to blow up the dam such that the water rushes out? I mean bombing a place to kill people is easy, but I have no idea if you have to hit specific spots on the dam or whether it is enough to just hit any area.
- morty16 11y agoThe allies (the RAF) had fairly specialized bombs in WWII to blow dams. They would fly in from upstream and drop a bomb shaped like a barrel (picture a barrel of oil) from very low altitude. The bomb would skip along the surface as it lost momentum and then sink close to the dam wall. At a certain pressure it would blow and take advantage of the hydrostatic shock to break up the wall. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago"Bouncing Bettys"
- arprocter 11y agoThat's slang for a jumping anti-personnel mine
- guard-of-terra 11y ago"pressure on the dam’s compromised structure was building up rapidly as winter snows melted and more water flowed into the reservoir" Do they really have snow worth to speak of in Iraq?
- jballanc 11y agoThe Mosul dam is on the Tigris river which originates in the Taurus mountains of Turkey. We had a fairly regular winter as far as snowfall goes, but the spring has arrived very early this year.
- burfog 11y agoSo this is Turkey's fault. They ought to redirect the river into the Black Sea or directly into the Mediterranean Sea. Other solutions are selling it as bottled water (with a suitably high price: buy this water or the children die!) or boiling it off to cool a power plant.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- atdt 11y ago> The dam was designed by a Swiss firm of consultants and built by a German-Italian consortium in 1984. Water began seeping through in 1986, when it became apparent that the geological issues were worse than the consultants had predicted. I doubt that this was an innocent failure on their part. There was a huge financial incentive for these firms to find some way to validate this project. Successive foreign consultants warned about the risk of building this dam on water-soluble bedrock. The risk was not subtle. The planning documents for this dam should be scrutinized very closely for evidence of omission or manipulation of data, and the firms involved should be investigated. And if they are found culpable, they should participate in the costs of shoring up the dam. They have played a part in this mess.
- germanier 11y agoAfter more than 30 years the statutes of limitations would hinder such investigations.
- kwhitefoot 11y agoReally? Details please.
- justsaysmthng 11y agoYes. Maybe there is evidence of manipulation of data , but who will bring the Italian/Swiss/German companies to justice ? Iraq ? US? EU? This happened 30 years ago, some people might not even be alive..
- tudorw 11y ago30 years is nothing in infrastructure terms, if the companies still have money in the bank, and they are guilty of something then of course they should pay, that's the business they chose to be in!
- tudorw 11y agoBhopal, event happened in 1984, some guilty verdicts delivered and sentences passed in 2010.
- james_pm 11y agoTo give some sense of the scale of the disaster that would follow a failure, the US considered bombing that dam and releasing all that water in response to a potential chemical attack on US troops during Gulf War I, according to Colin Powell (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_b.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_b.html - search for dams).
- TallGuyShort 11y agoThey considered an attack that would have killed ~1M people, presumably mainly civilians? sigh smh
- knowaveragejoe 11y agoTo play devil's advocate here, any competent military would consider possibilities like this. "War is hell" is said so often these days as to be blasé, but it really is true.
- akiselev 11y agoAre you saying that any competent military would consider racking up a civilian death toll on the order of the Auschwitz death camp in the matter of days? Thank god the US military isn't competent then.
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoYes. They should consider a given plan and look at the costs and the benefits. Kinda like when they drop bombs. Be it normal bombing, the fire bombing of Kyoto, or using nuclear bombs.
- flubert 11y agoWell we can look at it in one of two ways. You can look at a situation, and ask for all of the options, and their costs and benefits. So that when someone asks "why didn't you do this" or "what if we did such-and-such", you can say that we looked into it and the costs were too high, see report #JF0032-7. Or you can always look for the most evil intent in everything, which may say more about you than the world.
- s_q_b 11y agoI've had six civil engineers tell me that that dam has 6-months at maximum. The odds of collapse within that period ranged from 80-95% in estimates.
- _nedR 11y agoWhen did they tell you this? Just trying to get an accurate time-frame.
- Scarblac 11y agoWhen did they tell you that?
- s_q_b 11y agoA couple days ago, dinner conversation.
- arcadeparade 11y agoIs it because of the coming snow melt? Or just time is running out?
- s_q_b 11y agoUnexhaustively: snow melt, fighting season, lack of maintenance.
- chippy 11y agoSo they were working on fixing this but the west imposed sanctions in the 90s and stopped work. "There is no permanent solution except building another dam,” Ansari said. A second structure, the Badush dam, was started 20km downstream, to prevent a catastrophe in the event of the Mosul dam’s failure. But work on Badush halted in the 1990s because of the pressure of sanctions, leaving it only 40% complete."
- acqq 11y agoNot to mention the war in 2003 and everything afterwards, as presented by Bush (even if he hasn't personally developed the plan), it was "to bring democracy" there. Since the US was effectively for years in charge there, since 2003, theoretically, there was certainly enough time and money to finish the second dam.
- salgernon 11y agohttp://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2007/10/god-really-doesnt-like-bush-much.html The US was trying to provide "aid" in protecting the dam in 2007 - I have no idea if it was taken on as a legitimate project or just wallpaper to say "see how we're helping". I don't have time for fun conspiracy theories, but I'm sure lines can be traced all around construction of the dam, through the bush family, back to infrastructure, etc.
- acqq 11y agoThe estimated cost of finishing the second dam is much bigger than the "aid" from the link (the aid was meager $27m, split to 21 contractor), but still orders of magnitude lower that the money spent by the US only on the military in Iraq. Therefore not surprising, from the 2007 article behind your link: "In a report published on Tuesday, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said US-funded "short-term solutions" had yet to significantly solve the dam's problems." To compare: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSB... "Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion" If I calculate correctly, enough for 74,000 such "aid" fixes.
- gioele 11y agoThis is the bigger version of the Vajont Dam's tragedy of the '60s that killed two thousand people and wrecked an entire province. [1] > At 10:39 P.M., a massive landslide of about 260,000,000 cubic metres (340,000,000 cu yd) of forest, earth, and rock fell into the reservoir at up to 110 kilometres per hour (68 mph), completely filling the narrow reservoir behind the dam. The landslide was complete in just 45 seconds, much faster than predicted, and the resulting displacement of water caused 50,000,000 cubic metres (65,000,000 cu yd) of water to overtop the dam in a 250-metre (820 ft) high wave. > This event occurred when the company and the Italian government dismissed evidence and concealed reports describing the geological instability of Monte Toc on the southern side of the basin, and other early warning signs reported prior to the disaster. > Numerous warnings, signs of danger, and negative appraisals had been disregarded, and the eventual attempt to safely control the landslide into the lake by lowering its level came when the landslide was almost imminent and was too late to prevent it. and also > On 12 February 2008, while launching the International Year of Planet Earth, UNESCO cited the Vajont Dam tragedy as one of five "cautionary tales", caused by "the failure of engineers and geologists". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam
- arethuza 11y agoExcept that in the case of the Vajont Dam disaster that dam didn't actually fail and is mostly still there.
- ctdonath 11y agoHas/could someone at least set up some cameras recording 24/7 to document the inevitable collapse in detail?
- yread 11y agoInteresting that Hoover Dam mentioned elsewhere in the thread also had problems with geology of the rocks under it and had to be fixed in a hacky way by additional grouting for 12 years after completion http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/hoover_dam/Grout%20Curtain%20Failure-Hoover%20Dam.pdf http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/hoover_dam/Grout%20Curtain%20Fa...
- alphapapa 11y agoVery interesting! Thanks for sharing.
- salgernon 11y agoAn article from 2007: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7069109.stm With a similar conclusion mentions that the water resources minister kept much of the discussions about how to proceed with the dam maintenance out of the public eye to avoid bringing the issues to the attention of insurgents.
- acqq 11y agoThat still has nothing to do with the obligations of the US who were in charge of Iraq since 2003. Salgernon posted the link documenting how much the US engaged (hint: minimally, compared to what was needed to fix the issue): http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2007/10/god-really-doesnt-like-bush-much.html http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2007/10/god-really-doesnt-l...
- jamesfe 11y agoI was a Marine in Iraq from 06-09. We constantly built plans for the inevitable demise of this dam. Mostly just estimates of how screwed people would be. I'm surprised it's not blown yet, I was constantly worried someone would bomb it somehow, but 7 years later, it's still standing, so I'm unsure about any estimates given now - the Iraqis were fairly liberal in their estimates in 2006 (it'll fall by 2007) and the same predictions followed every year. Of course, they wanted vast quantities of money to fix it (and skim off the top for themselves) so there was some bias. Check out the Haditha Dam too. Another large body of water held back by aging infrastructure further destroyed by looters who dismantled huge pieces of machinery to sell as scrap for $0.05/lb.
- jksmith 11y agoSurprised that some big infrastructure company like Halli or Bechtel didn't see an opportunity to scheme some business from this.
- raisedbyninjas 11y agoRebuilding Mosul is more lucrative that maintenance on Mosul dam?
- jksmith 11y agoIndeed! Good thinking. Rebuild dam and city. Funded by US loans of course.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- samstave 11y agoThat's the business model of the IMF. Would you prefer to be paved in gold or bombs?
- noonespecial 11y ago
- ryanmarsh 11y agoSo many indignant comments here by people who've surely never seen how large construction projects work in third world countries. Try to keep in mind that the average civil engineer has the same amount of integrity as you do. Maybe more because lives are at stake. How construction projects get green lit in third world countries often follows an unorthodox set of practices far removed from the engineers who are told to "just make it work". Sound familiar?
- mratzloff 11y agoIf the dam breaks, ISIS will be judged responsible for more deaths than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maintenance on the dam almost entirely stopped when ISIS took over, and the grouting machines required for maintaining it were looted. And the dead will be Sunni Muslims--their own "citizens", those who didn't flee when ISIS took control of Mosul. It will be the lasting legacy of ISIS. Surely this is a factor in the timing of the US-led effort currently underway to retake Mosul from ISIS, backed by the Iraqi Army.
- Loughla 11y agoI'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's not how this will be viewed in a local/regional context. My guess is the local boys just trying to survive won't be seen as the problem when compared to the international imperialists and dictators we seem to be viewed as. Just a guess, really, but on an international level, we'll know the truth. But, I'm guessing this dam(n) failure will be yet another successful recruiting tool for ISIS and the like. Anyone with a head for middle-eastern politics and terrorist recruiting tactics around to respond?
- ilaksh 11y agoDon't let anyone blame ISIS. This has been an ongoing issue since the dam was built and the new dam construction stopped because of sanctions. Money should have been available for continuing the new dam. Enough billions were wasted on other projects since the invasion.
- Grishnakh 11y agoYou can blame ISIS all you want, but aren't the 1M people who'll be affected by this basically supporters of ISIS? As you said, they're ISIS's own citizens. So basically they're being hoist by their own petard. Every nation gets the government it deserves.
- seren 11y ago> Every nation gets the government it deserves. This is a somewhat radical stance. When an armed group seizes the control of a city, the citizens don't always have the ability to fight back. There are plenty of people who are risking their lives and have lost it in ISIS control territory, telling them they "deserved" it is really rash. Let's reverse the point of view and let's take 1M of Americans. Do you think I will find 1M Obama supporter? You have basically the ISIS stance, if you are living in the West, Muslim or not, you are an enemy and thus you deserve to be blown up.
- Grishnakh 11y agoDo I think you'll find 1M people in America who support Obama's administration? Um, yes... He was elected by about half the population, after all. I can easily find 1M people who still prefer to have him as President. Heck, right now with our current frontrunners, there's people who'd like to have another 4 or 8 years of Obama rather than Trump or Hillary. Now with Mosul, we're talking about 1M people. That's far, far more than the number of active ISIS fighters and other staff in the city. Have you never heard of guerilla warfare? If a population revolts, there isn't much a poorly-led and ill-trained military force can do to stop them. The people there are not revolting, so they're either cowards or complicit (and likely both). The people always have the ability to fight back, even if it has to be done as a war of attrition (use makeshift weapons to ambush small numbers of ISIS troops). Even in Nazi Germany and occupied France, there were resistance efforts from the local populations. Ever hear of the Maquis? ISIS doesn't have anywhere remotely near the resources and training that the Wehrmacht had in occupied France.
- leeleelee 11y ago
- Grishnakh 11y agoTo add to my prior comment, it seems like expending military resources to retake this area is a waste, since the citizens there support ISIS. Instead of getting soldiers killed fighting to "liberate" people who probably don't want to be liberated, maybe they should have just dropped a bunch of leaflets on Mosul, explaining that the dam isn't being maintained under ISIS control, and without maintenance will fail in a few years, causing a massive flood and killing most of the people in Mosul. So if they want to avoid this, it's up to them to rise up and revolt against ISIS. If they don't, oh well. If you're not willing to fight for your own survival and freedom, then maybe you don't deserve it, and you really have no right to expect others to do the dirty work for you and hand you these things on a silver platter.
- dang 11y agoWe detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11217648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11217648 and marked it off-topic.
- ansible 11y agoSo if they want to avoid this, it's up to them to rise up and revolt against ISIS. If they don't, oh well. If you're not willing to fight for your own survival and freedom, then maybe you don't deserve it, and you really have no right to expect others to do the dirty work for you and hand you these things on a silver platter. And these people back in 2003 were asking for the USA-led coalition to invade their own country, topple the government, wreck the country's infrastructure, and leave a power-vacuum in its place? A vacuum filled in by local warlords and ethnic-cleansing militias? I dispute the idea that we in the West have no responsibility here to help.
- Grishnakh 11y agoUnless you're a GOP voter (and not a Trump voter), then it's obvious that in 2003, Iraqis were not asking for their country to be invaded. However, since we made such a mess of it before, what makes you think we're going to do any better with another invasion and setting up another unpopular government? The people in that region don't like the government we set up because the Shias are too powerful; they want a government like what they had before, where the Sunnis have all the power, and the Shias and Kurds get stomped on. Are you willing to give them that government? If not, you're not going to get their support, and ISIS (or similar) is. You may claim that the West has a responsibility to help, but I claim that the West cannot help, and that there is no way for us, a bunch of outsiders, to make the situation better. Only the people there can fix the problem for themselves. We cannot do it for them. If we try, we will fail, and they will not appreciate it or agree with our methods.
- hypertexthero 11y agoThis reminded me of this story in the current issue of The New Yorker <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-man-who-made-millions-off-the-afghan-war> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-man-who-mad...
- jayess 11y agoAccording to the Paul Krugmans and other neo-Keynesians, it would be an economic boon. Imagine all the destruction that would need to be re-built!
- Tistel 11y agoAre there any articles about how/why the sluice gates are seized? Is it sediment blocking them? Or did something mechanical break? I would like to hear from an engineer. I know that the US Corps of Engineers has probably been to it during the various wars. I know the overall problem is the porous rock and whole dam collapsing (which is horrible for the locals), I am just curious what the best way to relieve the pressure to buy time.
- fapjacks 11y agoSoftware engineer here (chuckle). I spent a lot of time in Iraq, some of that time guarding infrastructure. The thing about most of that stuff -- and my guess in this case -- is that the machinery is rusted. The door may be physically jammed by silt or something, as well, but I would put my money on the machinery to open the doors being rusted or otherwise destroyed/removed by looters. This is the case with the vast majority of stuff like that in Iraq: If you weren't standing next to it with a machine gun, someone would carry off the parts to sell for scrap. Or at least nobody would come by to oil the parts and make sure they function properly. The thing with rusting machinery also is something of a cultural/religious phenomena, i.e. "it is the will of Allah" that this equipment is rusting, and therefore I should not perform maintenance on it. The Iraqi Army was hard to train for a number of reasons, but particularly in equipment maintenance for this reason. "Clean your weapon" ... "But it is the will of Allah that it is rusting" ...
- utku_karatas2 11y ago> "Clean your weapon" ... "But it is the will of Allah that it is rusting" Oh :) Not a cultural/religious phenomena. That is just a sarcastic way to ignore someone. This way of passive resistance is kinder (and safer in context) than to outright say "piss off". Everything is considered will of God in Islam anyways - from someone moving a finger to celestial events. When an Arab tells you "if it's the will of God" or "tomorrow" you are most likely on your own, nothing is going to get done. True for most of the muslims; more true for most of the Arabs. Source: a muslim.
- 11y ago
- wahsd 11y agoWho cares. It's been known about for decades and predictions of impending disaster made for a dozen years. At this point I don't care one bit what happens to anyone. This is totally and utterly foreseeable. Not my problem. Liquidate your assets and send your donations to Iraq if you want to help; quit trying to whip up the bleeding hearts to spend other people's money.
- martinpw 11y agoHere is a 2015 paper with a detailed technical analysis. The first author on this paper is the Iraqi engineer interviewed in this Guardian article. http://pure.ltu.se/portal/files/102425643/Vol_5_3_8.pdf http://pure.ltu.se/portal/files/102425643/Vol_5_3_8.pdf
- dghughes 11y agoIt seems to be a lost cause why not break open the jammed sluice gates one at a time to gradually let water through and let off at least some of the pressure? And then just leave them open. It seems pointless to continually fix a dam with such design flaws and needing constant repair.
- ryao 11y agoIt sounds like having a dam is riskier than the alternative of not having a dam. Why not try draining the resouvoir and dismantling the dam?
- dredmorbius 11y agoFor the nearest comparable disaster, look up the Banqiao Dam Failure, occurring in 1975 in China. It resulted in the deaths of 171,000 people in the densly-populated downstream valley. The circumstances of the failure are themselves instructive. Poor planning, poor design, ignored engineering warnings (and banishment of the engineer in question), inadequate safety presentations, a true monster of a storm (over 1 meter of water in 24 hours), miscommunications, failed communications, no downstream warning system, the inevitable dam failure, and a further cascade of additional dam failures, including many of which were blasted open with artillery. Only a relatively small number of the deaths were direcectly precipitated by the flooding. Many resulted from disease and starvation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam?wprov=sfla1 The Mosul Dam could potentially dwarf this tragedy.
- contravariant 11y ago>over 1 meter of water in 24 hours That's the first time I've seen rain measured in metres instead of millimetres.
- dredmorbius 11y agoWell, the official reports were in mm. But there were over a thousand of them.
- ilaksh 11y agoEither do an emergency maintenance now or do a real evacuation.
- dnnrly 11y agoAnd here's a petition to do something about it: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/123569 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/123569