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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.)
Shouldn't that be "3,420 gigawatt*hour per year", or "3,420 gigawatt*hour/yr"?
Shachar
Why haven't they blown it already?
Who is "they" and why would "they" do that?
This story smells bad.
We have a 2006 study by the US Army Corps of Engineers which says the same thing. And the problems apparently go back to its very construction in 1984.
In September 2006, the US Army Corps of Engineers determined that the dam, 45 miles upstream of Mosul on the River Tigris, presented an unacceptable risk.
"In terms of internal erosion potential of the foundation, Mosul Dam is the most dangerous dam in the world," the corps warned, according to the SIGIR report. "If a small problem [at] Mosul Dam occurs, failure is likely."
Come hell or high water, this should be dealt with pretty dam fast.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Isis is a radical Sunni sect.
But think about all the children!
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
Because we aren't barbarians who would kill a million innocent civilians for a pr win
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I would say the opposite. Regardless of who actually does it, America will be blamed. Also, if America were actually caught killing a million civilians, there would be severe repercussions all around.
In the long history of bad decisions by the CIA, I think that would be in the top 3, if not the worst.
The dam was built on what's effectively ... drywall? How do you fix something like that?
Most of the people killed will not be members of Daesh. While the floodwaters will certainly first hit Mosul, for the most part they'll be heading AWAY from Daesh-controlled territories - and towards Baghdad.
#DeleteChrome
Cry me a river ... oh wait!
There have been US military plans for a US junta as well as CIA plans for mind control, never mind the ill-informed proxy wars.
Killing a million is not a big deal for the CIA. Look at Central America in the 80s. Guatemala alone was a fifth of that and they just had bananas.
What are the repercussions? A drug war blamed on the dirty immigrants.
Don't be naive. There are extremely evil (or perhaps extremely stupid) people in the CIA. Blowing a dam and killing a million "sand niggers" is well within their idea of a good time. They have had no problem killing millions of good Catholics in Central America.
And in 20-30 years, almost no one in the USA will care.
Must have balls of steel.
I wouldn't go into Iraq to repair a dam no matter how much you paid me.
The chances of getting captured by ISIS make it not worth it at all.
Yes, I do. If we weren't, we'd just drop enough nukes to make the sands glow and be done with it. We'll accept some collateral damage, but nowhere near that amount.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
If you had read the story, you would know that ISIS doesn't control the dam. They controlled it long enough to disrupt the maintenance on the dam, but it sounds like that wasn't going well prior to ISIS and is significantly worse now.
Step 1: Do not engage with Islamic State downstream
Step 2: Islamic State relocates their power-base to this unchallenged area
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit
I do.
I can fully understand why you prefer to hide in anonymity, expressing this kind of views. Organisations like Daesh thrive on fools like you; people who are all too willing to abandon their humanity, for whatever reason. Here's a little quote from Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" - it seems to fit the description of both you and Daesh so well:
"Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble â" and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb, too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology. Ideology â" that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes.... That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.... Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago."
â"âAleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Chapter 4, p. 173
What the hell is "gigawatt/hours"?
GJ/s^2, energy per times squared, hmmm, a sort of acceleration of energy through time.
What, did Saddam Hussein invent a magical energy source and was he perhaps killed for that?
Questions, questions.
Good! That'll save tax dollars!
And that is all that matters to somebody from America, God's own country, where every public figure has to pretend they are devout Christians, is it? People like you are a disgrace. You may claim that American lives matter more to you than those of other nations, but I don't even think you mean that either - you are just a selfish little prick. Fortunately, as I know from experience, most Americans are decent people, whether they believe in God, gods or nothing.
According to the article I read yesterday, equipment was looted and the teams of 300 people who worked round the clock are now about 30.
The loss of equipment means that the voids that are eroded in the "rock" below the dam can no longer be filled with grout.
Also, one of the two sluice gates is jammed and because they need to be used as a pair (to avoid erosion) the water level cannot be reduced as the spring melt starts.
Finally, while the dam isn't under ISIS control, Mosul and post of the surrounding area is, so it probably exacerbates the problems.
Not so much cynical as ignorant, given that Isis isn't Shiite. If you're going to suggest what people should consider it would help if you gave the impression you had considered it at least a little yourself first.
Your post made me so mad I'm going to go out and shoot someone. You murdered them by making this post.
Oh wait, that makes no moral or logical sense. You're absolutely right- just like yours doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, I thought the Iraq war was stupid then. But that doesn't make us responsible for something another group chooses to do afterwards.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
But think about all the children!
You mean the so-called "cubs of the caliphate", the ones who shoot bound and prostrate prisoners in the back of the head? Good riddance to the lot of them, the human race is better off without them.
In what way are you different from them?
Great posting sabotaged by Slashdot's 1990's level unicode support.
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.
Perhaps it means the things we engineer can fail and that when they do they have consequences.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Actually, irresponsibly starting a war with absolutely no plan on what to do DOES make those who chose the war path responsible. If you were against the Iraq War, then no I wouldn't consider you responsible. But there is no question that the people who did support or start the war without any clear plan ARE responsible. And it wasn't like there were no warnings that starting a war there would destabilize the region.
So, yes, starting wars irresponsibly makes those in charge and in support of it makes them responsible as well. This does not mean I'm arguing ISIS is not at fault. They are also at fault, moreso than the warmongers. It is possible for more than one party to be at fault.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
How are you not responsible for removing the existing govt, (based on lies about WMD) that kept a lid on that hell hole, creating the circumstances that lead to this situation?
You broke it, you bought it seems to apply.
Errrr....because the CIA doesn't want to be responsible for a million dead Iraqis? Aside from the obvious moral issues, the legal ones would be awful if anyone found out...and it would come out sooner or later. It would be considered a war crime.
While the CIA is not part of the Defense Department, when asked by some Senate committee members if the U.S. would carpet bomb Daesh, General Paul Selva (Air Force) said, "The U.S. military will never carpet bomb." This is why Hayden said recently that were a President Trump to order carpet bombing, the Pentagon would refuse to carry out the order thus causing a Constitution crisis.
It is clear why they wouldn't do this or take out the dam, the U.S. military does not want to kill millions of people. They learned the hard way in Iraq that you cannot kill your way out the problem. And it causes every Tom, Dick, and Joe-Bob Ahmed who had a family member killed to join the opposition. Other generals during that war and in Afghanistan said the same thing.
Now if the people running for the presidency would come up to speed, then they wouldn't be saying similar stupid things.
They are sunni group following wahbisim interpretations which are officially adopted by Saudi Arabia. On the other hand , Iran backed forces (Shiaa militas) were the first to resist ISIS progress and defeated them in Tikrit,Anbar,Diyala. Read more on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Most of the people killed will not be members of Daesh.
They don't need to be - a million or more people getting killed because of them will cause their support to dwindle. ISIS is not some backwater, unsupported rogue islamic group - they have support to varying degrees from the majority of muslims wordwide (yes, more than 50%).
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Why haven't they blown it already?
Actually, a good question. It seemed like the Islamic State was very passionate about destroying anything non-Muslim . . . ancient temples, statues, works of art, etc. A dam should have been on their short list of non-Muslim stuff, so the Islamic State creeps should have blown it up a long time ago.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
since they aren't Christians... this will provide it. ;) And all the Christians have been expelled... :(
Actually, irresponsibly starting a war with absolutely no plan on what to do DOES make those who chose the war path responsible. If you were against the Iraq War, then no I wouldn't consider you responsible. But there is no question that the people who did support or start the war without any clear plan ARE responsible. And it wasn't like there were no warnings that starting a war there would destabilize the region.
So, yes, starting wars irresponsibly makes those in charge and in support of it makes them responsible as well. This does not mean I'm arguing ISIS is not at fault. They are also at fault, moreso than the warmongers. It is possible for more than one party to be at fault.
Soooo, are you holding Obama responsible for Libya turning into an ISIS controlled failed state too?
Or did you buy Obama's risible claim that fighting a war to topple Gaddafi "wasn't hostilities"?
Better yet, are you also holding Obama responsible for the rise of ISIS in Iraq because Obama IRRESPONSIBLY withdrew US troops before the region was stable?
My guess is you're not. After eight years, you really believe it's STILL all on BOOOOOOOSH!!!!!!
Note how you didn't even try to argue against anything I said.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
If its so dangerous just drain the darn thing. I don't care how neglected it is there has to be some way to open up the valves and drain the reservoir even if it involves shape charges or blow torches. If push came to shove simply disconnect the generators and open up their channels all the way, it would take a long time but the reservoir would eventually drain.
I suspect he isn't shooting bound and prostate prisoners in the back of the head.
As is the case for most of these people. I don't particularly want to stand trial for abuses conducted on my behalf by my government or representatives thereof. Do you? If not, why would you condemn people who have even less choice of whom represents them to die for the abuses of those people who happen to control the land they live on?
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
We can argue the what if's and should we have gone into Iraq all day long. But the reality is much more a factual standing and the fact that Obama left a wide void
for ISIS to infiltrate some of Northern Iraq was not only predicted, but the effects are being felt. No matter how you feel about this, when you liberate a Country you have a certain obligation to see that all your blood and money spent does some real good for the people. You don't just pull out like with a cheap whore and say you've paid your money and leave.
What you said didn't make much sense. Regardless if the war was irresponsible to start or not?, ISIS didn't have the control in Iraq until after Obama pulled the troops out. And to that point, it still doesn't make much sense because ISIS grew out of Syria's civil war that we largely sat on our hands about verbally bashing Assad saying he had to go while encouraging the rebellion.
You can say ISIS is in Iraq because we left to soon, but you cannot legitimately claim that ISIS is a product of entering the war.
Errrr....because the CIA doesn't want to be responsible for a million dead Iraqis?
They are already demonstrably responsible for 500,000 due to the pointless war they helped cause. Not sure why they would suddenly care now.
A dam is not a symbol of another religion, why would they destroy it? They don't destroy things just because they weren't built or designed by Muslims but because they are representative of other "false" (in their view) religions. Or because they are artworks that violate the commandment to not create graven images, be they religion focused or not.
A dam does not meet any of those criteria. They may have no motivation to maintain it, and saw the maintenance equipment as stuff to loot, but there is no reason for them to destroy it.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Why should I have to argue against your point which doesn't argue against my point? You're the one trying to argue with me first, so it is up to you to argue my points, not the other way around. If you had a valid point, you would have been able to, but you don't, which is why you're trying to argue something else.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
ISIS controls Mosul, so even if the Iraqi government took the dam back, the area is still a literal war zone. So, who provides security? Does ISIS have an interest in the dam remaining intact? If Mosul is downriver, I'd certainly think so, but ISIS is nuts.
Assad is still in power. Err did you think ISIS started in Iraq? Even then, they didn't hold ground in Iraq until we left. So I'm not sure what removing a government had anything to do with it other than leaving before the replacement government would function better.
Let me ask you something. Suppose a kid grows up to rob banks and kills someone in the process. Do you blame his parents? Do you blame his grandparents?
I rammed a speedboat into it and it broke.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
ISIS did start in Iraq as Al Qaeda. They were already active and carried out many attacks during the war before Obama was even elected. So what if they didn't hold any ground? They were still an active group already doing damage.
If we can show that the parents did influence, whether by action or knowing neglect, the kid's development into a bank robber, then YES I would also apportion blame to the parents as well. This is not a difficult question. Just because their may not be legal responsibility doesn't mean there isn't a moral one.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
So you're saying the Lybia means we should hold Hilary responsible?
shrug and cynically say, "inshallah".
A dam is not a symbol of another religion, why would they destroy it?
A natural spring squirts out some water in the mountains. This is Allah's will. As it runs down the mountain, it turns into a bigger river. and eventually runs into the ocean. This is also Allah's will.
If you build a dam to stop the water from flowing, you are countering Allah's will. So, thus, dams are anti-Islamic.
Q.E.D.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
ISIS did start in Iraq as Al Qaeda. They were already active and carried out many attacks during the war before Obama was even elected. So what if they didn't hold any ground? They were still an active group already doing damage.
If we can show that the parents did influence, whether by action or knowing neglect, the kid's development into a bank robber, then YES I would also apportion blame to the parents as well. This is not a difficult question. Just because their may not be legal responsibility doesn't mean there isn't a moral one.
So, withdrawing US troops and leaving Iraq to Al Qaeda was the PROPER and RESPONSIBLE way for Obama to act?
What is irresponsible, is building a fucking dam on gypsum soil in first place that need constantly repairs. Frankly, whatever anyone says you will track down until you can get Americans responsible for it. Go back to hell.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Because you are nuts, that's why.
Achille Talon
Hop!
ISIS and al qeada are competitors. There is no evolution there other than members of one are now in the other.
You need to cite that. Everything I can find says ISIS grew out of Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad which started in 1999 and was only allied with al qeada.
The rest of your reply is about as silly. A grown person makes their own decisions.
But the Iraq war led directly to the "other group" being created.
If that's the case, victim-player, why should I argue against someone who didn't even try to argue against what I said? The same still applies.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Allahu Akbar!
I'll answer the first part in the other reply.
And so what? The grown person makes their own decisions. But the parents ALSO made their own decision to have a kid and raise it to choose the wrong choices. There is no magical decree that responsibility can only lie with one party. That would be silly.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
They are competitors NOW. https://web.stanford.edu/group... https://www.wilsoncenter.org/a... You simply haven't been search very hard, or honestly it seems.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Hmm.....all the NON ISIS folks might wanna start making their way to the exit out of town.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'll answer the first part in the other reply. And so what? The grown person makes their own decisions. But the parents ALSO made their own decision to have a kid and raise it to choose the wrong choices. There is no magical decree that responsibility can only lie with one party. That would be silly.
What about the parents of the parents who raised their children to raise children who grow up to commit heinous crimes? How far back are you going to take it. The sins of the man fall at his own feet, not his fathers.
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Sure the large loss of life will be tragic, but perhaps this will wake the local people up to the threat of the Islamic State and give them reason to finally arm up and wipe those fuckers out.
That's right Muslims, when that damn breaks, IS will now be responsible for MILLIONS of your own religious brethren dying.
So when are you going to stand up and wipe out the extremists? Why are you needing to wait for millions of your own people to die before you come to that startling realization?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I already answered that question before.
In the case of ISIS, we KNOW how that began so it's not a even hypothetical question.
Furthermore, maybe if people were willing to trace the origins of these kinds of things, then we wouldn't be in these messes and making the same mistakes.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
People might blame the Iraq government though, since they are under control now
I expect it's more likely they'll find a way to blame the West in general and the US in particular.
It won't make any sense, but lots of people will believe it anyway.
#DeleteChrome
You are (approximately) correct in your first paragraph. Without the invasion those guys would have been spinning their wheels trying to not get killed or imprisoned by Saddam. As it was, after the invasion and dissolution of the Iraqi army, their ranks (and the ranks of every single militia in Iraq) swelled with well-trained, desperate professional soldiers. The turmoil that caused and the following inter-clan/inter-faith/inter-community struggles led directly to the instantiation of ISIS as we know them today, gave them a great head start, and ensured they would have no end of recruits and resources for a good few years. Quite the gift.
I already answered that question before. In the case of ISIS, we KNOW how that began so it's not a even hypothetical question. Furthermore, maybe if people were willing to trace the origins of these kinds of things, then we wouldn't be in these messes and making the same mistakes.
You might as well blame it on cavemen.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I was there in 2003 and they were saying that then. The workers work pretty hard at plugging the holes. Don't go swimming in the lake gives you a burning sensation. Looks good for taking a plunge when it is 110 outside, then oh shit my skin is burning.
Tell me how that dam was ever profitable in the first place. That's a lot of energy going into rebuilding the dam; does it really generate more than it takes to constantly repair its own structural erosion?
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ISIS grew out of Al Qaeda which wasn't in Iraq until the war. ISIS didn't just magically appear in Syria.
Not from the sources I have read. ISIL* grew out of Egyptian radicalism which states that anybody who does not agree with them is not muslim and may/should be killed. Al Qaeda grew out of Bin Laden's idea of jihad but only really came into being when alligned with similar Egyptian radicals to give them the backing and people it needed to grow their network. Al Qaeda is specifically an anti-USA organization. ISIL is specifically an anti-shiite organization looking to create a race/religious war to not just make the sunnis the only branch of Islam, but to make their specific branch of sunni islam the only version of Islam. With the disatisfaction (and starvation) caused by previous middle eastern and north african governments followed by the chaos of the arab spring, young men have swarmed to them. They were further bolstered by the old Iraqi baathists who are also anti-shiite sunnis. Currently, ISIL and Al Qaeda are competing for resources and people as much of Al Qaeda was shiite, and much that wasn't has left for ISIL. ISIL is in Syria because the Syrian baathists are shiites and the sunni Iraqi baathists hate each other and have support with the oppressed sunnis of Syria just as the shiites of Iraq were oppressed.
* I choose not to call them ISIS because it causes confusion with the Egyptian goddess so much and changed Archer, even if the new non-spy seasons have been great.
But think about all the children!
As long as Mosul is in ISIS control, they are ISIS responsibility. We have enough of our own problems
God != allah
In which case, what are YOU doing here? Talking about a regime that has not been around for the last 8 years, and whose succession has been emphatically rejected by his own party in this year's primary.
I'm no fan of Obama, but I agree w/ him on this one. Also, I disagree w/ the Bush doctrine. It was okay to invade Iraq to verify the WMDs, which they then verified were not there, but beyond that, all that nation-building - toppling Saddam, holding elections, forcing Shias, Sunnis & Kurds to work together in a unity government, spending billions on reconstructing that country - none of that should have been done. When Bush stood on the USS Missouri w/ that 'Mission Accomplished' banner, he happened to be right. After that, he should have just pulled all US troops out (aside from those searching for the WMDs) and focused on fixing our own economy.
The result of the Iraqi constitution & elections was the declaration of a new Islamic state, from where Christians NOW started fleeing into SYRIA (this was well before ISIS was in the picture). It resulted in Iraq being handed over to Iran on a platter, thereby completing the Shia crescent of Teheran, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. And US buying into the Sunni ambitions of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar to topple Assad is what resulted in the current civil war.
Trump is right on this one. We outsource everything else - we should outsource this war to Putin.
Anti US folks are idiots more often than not. Not that I don't a acknowledge boatloads of stuff wrong here.
Mmm, yes?, Obama is responsible for attacking Libya?
And also Syria for that matter. I don't see why can't both Obama and Bush be the bad guy.
The US regime fell 8 years ago and was replaced with a new constitution? I didn't know that.
It's remarkably difficult to hire skilled workers to move to a strategic location in a civil war which has already previously been taken by a group known for beheading or enslaving their captives, and could be retaken by them at any time.
This space intentionally left blank
Personally, I would go back farther than the 41st president.
religion != mathematics
bound and prostate
Prostrate != Prostate. Unless you're imagining something a lot more unusual than I am.
Syria?
Actually the origin was Jordan and moved to Iraq after the founder was injured in Afghanistan and got treatment in Iraq.
In countries like Egypt - and Malaysia, Christians get into trouble for using the word 'allah' to denote God. allah is Mohammed's sock puppet, who approved everything the latter wanted - from marrying his daughter-in-law or marrying a 6 year old.
If you want to do that then the blame lies rather squarely on the colonization and subsequent division or property perpetuated by the League of Nations. Then again, to be frank, much of the circumstances are due to that. However, the blame lies squarely with the people chopping off heads.
You can try to blame the US if you want but that's only looking at a very small piece of history and kind of silly. It's a bit like the AGW deniers selectively cherry-picking years and data-sets to say that no warming occurred for 19 years. You can do that but there are plenty of us who are well aware of the reality and, in case you're unaware, the US wasn't actually a part of the League of Nations.
So, if you won't blame the perpetrators (which is kind of strange but it's your logical fallacy so I implore you to run with it and be proud of doing so) then you might as well blame Europe, their colonization, and their placing of both rulers and boundaries where none had been and none where they had been. If you want to go back far enough then you might as well go back to the Crusades which, I guess, you can try to blame on the Muslims but that'd be silly.
No, no it's quite squarely the way it is because of European meddling. The attempt to blame the fallout on the US is amusing but is typical. The US has been cleaning up after their messes for years and years and years. But hey, it's easier to blame the US rather than accept responsibility for their actions, attempt to do something about it, and actually blame the perpetrators. Good call! It's less risky for their health too. Cowardice and unaccountability seem an awful lot like bliss.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Ah, my favorite (and only line that I remember) from Waiting for Godot...
"Hmm... It'd give us an erection."
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
ISIS also wouldn't have control if ISIS didn't form itself and take control. I don't understand this obsession that progression of time = causality. I guess then you could trace it all back to that damn Christopher Columbus. Without him trying to find India, then ....300 years of events.... then the US wouldn't have ..... more years of events.... and then ISIS in IRAQ!
The dam is upstream of Mosul. Which is why Mosul (and Baghdad, and a number of other cities) is under threat if this dam breaches and the water flows downstream.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
For a megadeath, that'll be about 100,000. It'll take a couple of days to replace them. No big deal.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
We were complaining about Slashdot's inadequate support for non-ASCII characters back in the 1990s. It really is pathetic.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Incorrect choice of facts. When the flood hits Baghdad (and points between Mosul and Baghdad where there are Americans), casualties are likely. I'd guess several dozen, given the number of bridge guards etc, and people's propensity to underestimate the time they need to get away through a crowd of other people trying to get away.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
If you're looking for a gigacasualty hazard, you really need to look to pandemic flu.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"