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> many people are used to floods caused by heavy rain, and the danger feels similar. I don't know what "people feel", but the reality of a large dam that is bl
by trashtester 4y ago
> many people are used to floods caused by heavy rain, and the danger feels similar.
I don't know what "people feel", but the reality of a large dam that is blown up is more like a tsunami than a normal flood. If it hits a city, casualties can easily reach the 10s or 100s of thousands, instantly.
In a way, an upstream dam is a health hazard for anyone in the area that might be flooded that should be concerning at the same level as living in an area that has had some nuclear contamination.
- addicted 4y agoFor a busted dam to destroy a city, the city necessarily would have been built on land that was literally underwater until before the dam. This isn’t common, to say the least.
- BurningFrog 4y agoThis presumes the gigantic water mass in the dam would stay within the downstream river banks when released. Water is not that polite... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll#Ten_deadliest_floods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_d...
- hansihe 4y agoThis is not true. Rivers are often dammed to create an artificial body of water that can be used for power generation. You are storing water from the river when it has a high flow rate, in order to be able to generate power when needed. There is nothing that requires the area downstream from the dam to have been previously underwater.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago