Iraq's Mosul Dam Could Burst At Any Time (blastingnews.com)

MarkWhittington writes: The Mosul Dam, located near the city of Mosul in Northern Iraq, was started by Saddam Hussein in 1981 as a way to bolster his regime and provide power to the surrounding area. It was completed in 1986 and has since generated 3,420 gigawatt/hours per year. Unfortunately, the dam was built on an unstable foundation of gypsum and thus needs constant repairs to plug leaks and maintain its structural integrity. Even more unfortunately, such repair efforts have stopped since the Islamic State seized control of Mosul. The dam could burst at any time, as a consequence. The flood could kill a million people and render a million more homeless. Radio Free Europe reports that Italy's Trevi Group has been contracted to repair and maintain the dam, but it seems like there's a lot to catch up with. (Also at The Guardian and Mother Jones.)

Comments

1,000,000 deaths?

[Dog-Cow]

That must be wrong. Deaths from nuclear weapons and power plant accidents, combined, haven't killed that many people. Dams are clean energy producers and have to be way safer than that evil nuclear stuff. The estimates must be off by a few orders of magnitude. Nothing else makes sense.