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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

#31

Post by atdt »

> 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.

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

#32

Post by digi_owl »

jrockway wrote: post #12

John 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.

You also get this with corporations, as new stuff is filed as an investment while maintenance is under expenses.

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

#33

Post by bgilroy26 »

moonshinefe wrote: post #4
zazen wrote: post #2

The 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 som…

Not 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.

They ought to be able to finance the project by borrowing against the proceeds of the movie they make about the whole ordeal

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

#34

Post by yourapostasy »

brohee wrote: post #16

Iraq 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…

> AFAIK you can abandon the Hoover dam and it will still be there in 500 years.

Yes, Hoover dam is quite the civil engineering and project management feat. It's structural lifespan in the absence of maintenance (the turbines will go inoperative in months to years in the absence of maintenance) is estimated in the thousands of years range. [1]

http://zidbits.com/2013/05/how-long-will-the-hoover-dam-last...

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

#35

Post by autopov »

foota wrote: post #9

This 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/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 , to save you the effort of googling :)

For 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%3A65...

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

#36

Post by jrockway »

ajuc wrote: post #24
jrockway wrote: post #12

John 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.

The fix seems easy - do cut the ribbon in such cases.

That 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.

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

#37

Post by germanier »

atdt wrote: post #31

> 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 consultan…

After more than 30 years the statutes of limitations would hinder such investigations.

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

#38

Post by justsaysmthng »

atdt wrote: post #31

> 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 consultan…

Yes. 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..

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

#39

Post by mercurial »

afarrell wrote: post #5
zazen wrote: post #2

The 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 som…

The 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.

Considering the propension of the Iraqi military to run away when faced with ill-equipped, outnumbered opponents, I can't blame the contractor.

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

#40

Post by LoSboccacc »

foota wrote: post #9

This 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/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 , to save you the effort of googling :)

> formerly known as Saddam Dam

such an opportunity lost to call it SadDam

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