The world’s biggest dams are capable of holding back billions of tons of water and can tower hundreds of feet in height, making them some seriously awe-inspiring man-made structures. But what happens when all that comes tumbling down, literally? Sit back as we take a look at some catastrophic cock-ups that will make you say “damn!”
Laos Dam Collapse
Laos is a landlocked country led by a secretive, communist government. Although it rarely shares information with the outside world, the hydropower scandal of 2017 managed to really burst through. In an attempt to bring the country out of poverty, Laos has rushed to build hydroelectric dams along its many rivers and tributaries, which likely measure around 5,000 kilometers in length, or even more.
The power these waterways produce will be enough to outsource 15,500 megawatts to neighboring Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia by 2030. That’s enough to put it on the map as the very profitable Battery of Southeast Asia. This means the country has built 51 hydro-electric dams in the last ten years, with 46 more under construction. But this rush to become battery powered led to some serious leaks in safeguards and standards. And this became all too clear on September 11th, 2017. After a period of heavy rainfall, the under-construction Nam Ao dam of the Phaxay district in the Xieng Khouang Province collapsed without any warning. Almost 18 million cubic feet of dirty water fell downstream.
Flash floods after dam burst, Nam Ao Dam, Phasai District, Xieng Khouang Province 11 September 2017 by buddha It came on so suddenly that many were lucky to escape with their lives. Shoddy construction work and lax safety standards were blamed for the collapse. Miraculously, no lives were lost in the catastrophic event. But that was only the beginning of Laos’ hydropower problems.
In 2018, a second hydroelectric dam that was under-construction collapsed. But as you can see in the footage below, the damage from the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy dam burst was much worse, 1000 times worse to be exact. Almost 18 billion cubic feet of water flooded 6 nearby villages, displacing almost everyone who lived there and affecting over 16,000 people.
Xe Pian Xe Namnoy dam failure by Dick Meehan The reason for the failure wasn’t simply a case of heavy rains overtopping the dam walls, but a serious engineering oversight which involved using soil instead of concrete in its construction. Where did the engineers on this project get their license from? Looks like cutting corners really shortened Laos’ battery life.
Lake Dunlap Dam Failure
On May 14th, 2019, CCTV footage from Lake Dunlap near San Antonio, Texas, captured the dam’s three spillways looking completely undisturbed. But after a while, the middle spill gate suddenly began to bend and break.
By 8:06, 11,000 cubic feet of water was bursting into the Guadalupe river every second! That’s almost enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool to the brim every 8 seconds. By that evening, Lake Dunlap’s water level had dropped by almost 10 feet, exposing the roots of trees and leaving many boats stranded on the newly dry bottom.
But what caused this bizarrely unexpected breach? Sadly, no explanations have been offered to the public as of yet. The spill gates, which are the mechanical structures, are designed to regulate the flow of water from the lake. But considering that the dam is about 91 years old, it’s possible that the waters of time have worn them down. It certainly raises concerns about the 1,263 other high-risk dams in Texas, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, many of which are over 50 years old! Although these high hazard dams are supposed to have emergency action plans in place in case they fail, a staggering 20% have no plan of any kind, says the ASCE. Let’s hope the Texans know how to swim!
Mariana Mining Disaster
When it comes to dam failures, Brazil doesn’t have a great track record. Mining operations around the south American country use around 790 tailings dams to store the toxic by-products of mining processes. These dams are cheap to build as they’re made predominantly out of earth and rock barrages, but it seems you only get what you pay for when it comes to these monstrous megastructures.
In November 2015, the Fundão tailings dam near Mariana city began to leak. As you can probably tell, this was not good news. It meant the core of the dam had become waterlogged and unstable. Less than an hour later the dam ruptured in the most terrifying way possible.
Brazil's Mariana mining disaster, two years on by FRANCE 24 English A tsunami-like wave made up of 1.5 billion cubic feet of toxic sludge was released downstream. The nearby town of Bento Rodrigues was wiped off the map, around 600 people lost their homes and 19 lost their lives. The entire incident was blamed on a huge oversight by Vale and BHP, the companies managing the project. They were fined a gargantuan $5 billion for their negligence, but no amount of money will negate the fact that this was the worst environmental disaster in Brazil's history.
Brumadinho Dam Disaster
But it gets worse. Almost 4 years later in 2019, the collapse of Dam 1 at the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine dominated headlines around the world. And you can see why in the footage below:
Dam Collapse Caught On Camera. by Eric Côrtes Every second of this CCTV footage is more agonizing to watch than the last as the mud-slide demolishes everything in its path! Approximately 413 million cubic feet of mud swamped the valley,
destroying entire villages and burying some areas in up to 50 feet of sludge. It eventually coated an area the same size as 300 soccer pitches! It may not sound like much in contrast to the 1.5 billion cubic feet that Fundão released, but just take a look at these satellite images, which show the shocking before and after effects of the catastrophe.
In the two weeks following the disaster, the mud contaminated 120 kilometers of the Paraopeba River, affecting a further 10 towns downstream. Tragically, this failure also cost the lives of 270 people, many of which were workers who were having lunch in the facility's cafeteria, in the shadow of the dam. Some nearby residents were also swept away and buried in thick mud. And that’s not even the worst part. It was owned by Vale, the very same company responsible for the Fundão dam! According to the findings of an internal report, they’d even known the dam was at risk of collapse since 2003! Although Vale claims to have addressed some internal management issues, you can’t help but feel like that’s just too little, too late.
Mount Polley Mine Disaster
As terrible as Brazil’s dam collapses were, it’s not the only country guilty of mismanaging tailings dams. Step up to the plate, Canada! The country that’s famous for its nature experienced apocalyptic tailings failing at Mount Polley mine in British Colombia.
Mount Polley Mine Tailings Pond Breach - August 4, 2014 by Cariboo Regional District In August 2014, the tailings dam breach released almost 258 million cubic feet of tailings residue, about 375 million cubic feet of surface water, and around 230 million cubic feet of water extracted from the earth. The total fallout of the dam failure would be enough to fill about 9,250 Olympic-sized swimming pools with toxic sludge! Most of which was dumped in the British Colombian waterways as well. And just like its Brazilian sisters, this one was down to some shady engineering choices. An investigation found that the dam, built in 1997, was built on an unstable layer of glacial till, something the engineers hadn’t accounted for. As the dam grew higher, the pressure on the foundation increased until it gave way after just 18 years! As of summer, 2020, after 5 years of investigations, absolutely
no charges have been made against the engineers or companies involved.
Oroville Dam Spillway
At 770.5 ft tall, the Oroville Dam in California is the tallest dam in the United States, and one of the tallest in the entire world. But bigger doesn’t always mean better, as the operators of this gigantic earth embankment soon found out.
To convey water past the dam and prevent it from overflowing, Oroville used a service spillway measuring 300 feet long and 179 feet wide. But in February 2017, water was gushing at a standard rate of 50,000 cubic feet per minute down the spillway when operators noticed a section of the chute had been ripped away. And it wasn’t exactly a small segment, the workers looked very tiny inside the spillway crater!
Footage reveals that the water should be flowing down, but the damage is directing the water off this way instead. The erosion of the spillways foundation became so serious that operators decided to use a second, emergency spillway for the first time since its construction in 1968.
Oroville Spillway May 19, 2017 by California DWR But erosion raised its ugly head once again, leading to an uncontrollable flow of water escaping the reservoir! Despite also using the damaged spillway to counter the rapidly rising water levels, an evacuation order was called which pulled at least 188,000 people from their homes. A combination of inexperienced engineering and lack of safety measures led to
this disaster, with repairs and recovery costing the US an estimated $1.1 billion. Considering the Oroville Dam cost a whopping $123 million to build back in 1967, over $950 million today, the cost of the 2017 failure must’ve been a real bitter pill to swallow.
Spencer Dam Collapses
You’d expect that the bigger the dam failure, the worse the damage; but the Spencer Dam in Nebraska proved that isn’t always the case. At just 26 ft high, this watery weir isn’t even the same height as a 2 story building. But its collapse in 2019 led to devastating flooding that cost $19 million in damages! How’s that even possible?
Spencer Dam collapses by KCAU-TV Sioux City Following a north American blizzard, the Niobrara river became swollen with rain as well as rapid snow and ice melt in an event the dam had never seen before. Not to mention one it definitely wasn’t designed to withstand, some of these ice blocks were bigger than pickup trucks! Miniature icebergs blocked the spill gates, causing the dam’s total failure. The earth embankment crumbled, causing damage to the main spillway. The break caused an 11-foot wave of water to cascade through the breach, sweeping away sections of the nearby 281 highway, a riverside saloon and at least one home.
Spencer Nebraska Dam Collapse/ US 281 Bridge Drone Footage 4k by Doug Koenig Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam Disaster
The Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power plant is one of Russia’s greatest pride and joys. In fact, it’s the largest power plant in Russia and 10th largest hydroelectric power plant in the world. For some perspective, the world-famous Hoover Dam places 64th on that same list! Although the plant saw the completion of a sophisticated five step spillway in 2011, this soviet era megastructure was brought to its knees back in 2009.
On the fateful morning of August 17th, one of the dam’s faulty turbines had been forced into operation following a fire at a neighboring power plant. It was just one of ten turbines responsible for processing the dam’s 6,400-megawatt output, enough to power a city of 3.8 million people! But at 8:13am, the 1,500-ton faulty turbine suddenly blasted through the floor of the turbine hall. The vacant shaft, now totally exposed, turned into a deadly geyser, shooting out 67,600 gallons of water per second like a giant water jet. In the CCTV footage you can see below the water surging towards panicked employees as they desperately tried to escape, and in a matter of minutes their parking lot was completely flooded.
Sayano-Shushensk Hydro Pover Plant Disaster. CCTV footage. by Andrius Burlėga But the devastation stretched further than that. Over the following fortnight, rescuers removed 177,000 cubic feet of debris, pumped 73 million gallons of water and cleared up 40 tons of transformer oil that had been dragged into the Yenisei River. But, worst of all, of the 89 workers trapped in the turbine hall and rooms below at the time of the explosion, only 14 could be rescued. The fallout of
this huge failure really begs the question: was pushing a defective turbine to its absolute breaking point worth the cost of so many human lives?
Folsom Gate Failure
The 340-foot-high Folsom Dam in California has a pretty good history of saving the area from flooding. From 1955 to 1986, it’s saved approximately $5 billion in flood damage, and its hydropower plant produces over 774,000 megawatt hours of power a year. That’s enough to power a Boeing 747 for over 5500 hours!
But the Folsom Dam hasn’t come without its faults. Back in July 1995, when Folsom Lake was at full capacity,
the unthinkable happened. During a scheduled power plant shutdown, Gate 3 was raised and suddenly burst open, releasing water at a rate of 40,000 cubic feet per second!
Folsom gate failure by A. S. Massey Friction at one of the gate hinges had caused a huge amount of corrosion over time. When it inevitably bust open, nearly 40% of the water stored in the lake was lost. It was a design oversight that cost $20 million to repair, but, thanks to the emergency action of the dam operator, the costs stopped there. If anything, it had positive impact on the dam industry with renewed interest sparked on gate maintenance, helping to prevent future accidents.
Colombian Dam Floods
A dam’s last line of defense to prevent disaster usually comes in the form of an outlet pipe, a lot like the one in the image below, captured in Brazil. These huge valves work like taps, relieving the dam if there’s too much water collecting behind the massive walls, and some can fire water out around 4,400 gallons per second!
But what happens when an emergency measure like this isn’t in place? Sadly, the Ituango dam of Colombia found that out the hard way. In 2018, the 738-foot tall
hydroelectric dam ran into big trouble during construction. Three tunnels had been built around the site to divert the Cauca River that would eventually fill the reservoir, but only one was functional. But an unforeseen landslide blocked up the final tunnel! With no way of opening it, and after failed attempts to open the two other tunnels that had previously been plugged with concrete, the reservoir began to fill. As it threatened to breach the dam, engineers made the choice to have water flow through the unfinished machine house. But it was more powerful than any of the workers expected! Suddenly, one of the previously sealed tunnels naturally re-opened releasing tons of dirty water onto an unprepared slipway.
Disaster in Hidroituango(Colombia) Must watch it by Luis H Hernandez
With this devastating amount of water heading downstream destroying bridges, houses, and roads in its wake, an emergency evacuation was ordered of over 25,000 people. If the dam had been overtopped, water would have flowed into the municipalities at a rate of approximately 9 million cubic feet per second. That would have flooded almost all of them in little more than 2-hours! Miraculously, the dam remained mostly intact and no fatalities were reported. But this horrific event seriously put the dam in damage!
Michigan Dam Failure
Most will agree that 2020 has been the worst year in many of our lifetimes. But for many residents of the great lake state of Michigan, it got a whole lot worse. Forget killer viruses, murder hornets and climate change, poor old Michigan can also tick “massive dam failure” off of its 2020 apocalypse bingo card. And they experienced not one dam failure, but two!
After record breaking heavy rains swept the state, on May 19th a section of the Edenville dam impoundment failed in spectacular style. The 5 story embankments holding back the manmade reservoir of Wixom lake started crumbling, and 21.5 billion gallons of water proceeded to rush through.
Michigan dam failure caught on video by MLive But the flooding didn’t stop there! Further down the Tittabawassee river, the floodwaters then began to flow over the top of the Sanford dam. At just 3 stories tall, it didn’t stand a chance against the torrent of waters and failed shortly afterwards. In just a matter of hours, lake Wixom was drained, and the surrounding area had been flooded, forcing the evacuation of over 10,000 residents.
YouTube Video by Unknown
But this disastrous domino effect could have been avoided. In 2018, a filing against the company that controlled Edenville dam, Boyce Hydro, revealed the crooked company had neglected to upgrade the dam, meaning it could only handle about 50% of the floodwaters from such an event. The area is now looking at
$175 million in damages, and with lawsuits for compensation and repairs being filed against Boyce Hydro, you can bet they’re getting that sinking feeling! I hope you were amazed at these massive dam failures. Thanks for reading!
