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Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

theguardian.com

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Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

#211

Post by the-dude »

zeveb wrote: post #203
dang wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commenters are required to post civilly and substantively, or not at all. It's bad enough that you are uncivil to your fellow users, and worse that you start religious flamewars. But blaming a million people for their own prospective drowning because you say they're Isis supporters (a ridiculous claim about a group known to terrorize the populations it rules over), and therefore have it coming to them, is far outside…

dang, where is he being uncivil or unsubstantive in the parent post? I simply don't see it. I don't see that he's 'blaming a million people for their own prospective drowning,' but rather blaming a million people for their current government, which is something very different. I don't particularly agree with either his argument or his style of expression, but I believe that he's very much within the norms of HN, and…

I don't see it either.

Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

#212

Post by contravariant »

dredmorbius wrote: post #209

For 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 mete…

>over 1 meter of water in 24 hours

That's the first time I've seen rain measured in metres instead of millimetres.

Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

#213

Post by arprocter »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #177
morty16 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 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/wi…

"Bouncing Bettys"

That's slang for a jumping anti-personnel mine

Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

#214

Post by arprocter »

morty16 wrote: post #176
tomjen3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How 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.

The 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/wi…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dam_Busters_%28film%29

One of the most interesting things IMO was how they used angled lights under the planes - shone onto the surface of the reservoir to make sure they were at the correct altitude to drop the bomb (incorrect height and it wouldn't skip)

Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

#215

Post by Grishnakh »

zeveb wrote: post #203
dang wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commenters are required to post civilly and substantively, or not at all. It's bad enough that you are uncivil to your fellow users, and worse that you start religious flamewars. But blaming a million people for their own prospective drowning because you say they're Isis supporters (a ridiculous claim about a group known to terrorize the populations it rules over), and therefore have it coming to them, is far outside…

dang, where is he being uncivil or unsubstantive in the parent post? I simply don't see it. I don't see that he's 'blaming a million people for their own prospective drowning,' but rather blaming a million people for their current government, which is something very different. I don't particularly agree with either his argument or his style of expression, but I believe that he's very much within the norms of HN, and…

Thank you. I'll admit I frequently tend to adopt an unconventional viewpoint out of left field and pose that; you can get some really good debates going that way.

Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

#216

Post by akiselev »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #194
TallGuyShort wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hell because of stuff like this. What doesn't seem to hit home for some people is that maybe your country isn't always "the good guys", and seriously considering a plan like this (beyond investigating what would happen so you can make the right decision when things start happening quickly) is precisely what makes you the bad guy.

The crux of your argument seems to rest on what "seriously considered" means. Not saying the US is the "good guys" here, but they're doing their due diligence, not trying to inflict the most damage purely out of rage or spite.

In my opinion, that's the point. Acknowledging that there is a dam whose collapse is capable of killing a million people is very different from actively assigning military personnel to study how to compromise the dam and flood the population for strategic gain. As the GP said, the statement "war is hell" is only made true by our own behavior during wartime, not by any universal law of the universe.

This is very murky territory no matter how you swing it

Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

#217

Post by akiselev »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #131
arethuza wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most major militaries have considered options that are orders of magnitude worse.

Not most, all. Again, the concept that "war is hell" doesn't seem to hit home for some people.

How many armies in history have had the power to carry out mass murder on the scale of a million plus civilians in a single day, let alone planned to do so?

Killing such a number of people in such a short time has been absolutely impractical until the last century. Only China, Japan, Russia, and the United States have been able to carry out such destruction and none have been able to do so in such a short period of time except for nuclear weapons in WWII.

Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

#218

Post by fapjacks »

utku_karatas2 wrote: post #210
fapjacks wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software 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…

> "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…

Sure, that much is obvious, I just felt like "cultural/religious phenomena" was the best descriptor instead of saying something like "Them A-rabs are just super lazy".

Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

#219

Post by ilaksh »

mratzloff wrote: post #119

If 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 th…

Don'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.
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