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Lion of Babylon -> RE: Mosul Dam is at a breaking point (8/13/2007 9:59:33 PM)
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Zoba dude. Not sure if Saif has his facts right (I hope he does) but here is a further report about the dam.
Mosul Dam on Brink of Breach?Catastrophic Flood Could Put 70% of Mosul Underwater The marls, soluble gypsum, anhydrite, and karstic limestone providing the foundation for the largest dam in Iraq are eroding at a rapid pace, raising the terrifying prospect that the Mosul Dam could give way, drowning the surrounding area and lands to the south.
"It could go at any minute," a senior aid worker who has knowledge of the struggle by US and Iraqi engineers to save the dam told the UK Independent. "The potential for disaster is very great."
Flood waters resulting from a dam breach could destroy 70 percent of Mosul and inflict heavy damage 190 miles downstream along the Tigris. The humanitarian disaster that would result represents a nightmare scenario for the Iraqi and US government, as lack of disaster-response capability would make search and rescue extremely difficult. In 2003, experts from the Corps of Engineers laid out a scenario equal to a decent disaster movie and one that may evoke memories of Hurricane Katrina:
"(Collapse of the Mosul Dam) would set in motion a cascade of catastrophe, unleashing as much as 12.5 billion cu m of water pooled behind the 3.2-km-long earth-filled impoundment thundering down the Tigris River Valley toward Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. The wave behind the 110-m-high crest would take about two hours to reach the city of 1.7 million."
Patrick Cockburn writes for the Independent:
The state of the two-mile long earthfill dam, which holds back some eight billion cubic metres of water in Iraq's largest reservoir, has recently been deteriorating at ever-increasing speed. According to one source, the chance of a total and immediate failure of the dam is now believed to be "reasonably high" at current water levels and "most certain" within the next few years. The effort to prevent the collapse of the dam is overseen by the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources. The US Army Corps of Engineers has made continual efforts to monitor the deterioration and undertake remedial action. But a US report, obtained separately from the embassy statement, says that "due to fundamental and irreversible flaws existing in the dam's foundation, the US Army Corps of Engineers believes that the safety of the Mosul Dam against a potential catastrophic failure cannot be guaranteed".
The US State Department advertises that it supplies the Iraqi government with $20 million dollars worth of grouting equipment for the Mosul dam through the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. But grouting the dam can only provide temporary relief, and does nothing to reconstruct the failing infrastructure that threatens to turns large swaths of Iraqi land into a watery graveyard.
Though the US maintains the Iraqi government holds responsibility for the dam, its failure would most certainly be blamed on both. Making a serious commitment to secure the Mosul Dam appears the only way to ensure the city--one rare beacon of semi-stability in the country--does not become a disaster area.
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