Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remember that the sluice gates are seized. Obviously they should still drain it but it's not as simple as making the call.
How could they drain it?
Dig an alternate channel.
Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
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Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#12John Oliver did a pretty good piece on infrastructure:
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.
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#13Drain 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.
Remember that the sluice gates are seized. Obviously they should still drain it but it's not as simple as making the call.
Would it suffice to just take a stick of dynamite to one of the seized gates?
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#14They 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.
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#15They 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.
We're very good at dikes. We don't have much practice with hydroelectric dams though ;)
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#16Iraq 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...
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#17Drain 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.
> Drain it. Seriously.
Easy to say when the sluice gates are stuck and the dam represents more than 10% of the country's already way under demand electricity production.
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#18Iraq 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 h…
Perhaps you meant to say "couldn't achieve..."?
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#19There'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.
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
How could they drain it?
Dig an alternate channel.
I'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.