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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?
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.
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?
Drain the dam permanently. There could be something they could do to greatly reduce the risk of the dam (and maybe this new contractor will do just that), but in its current state, I just can't see any long term future for it. The problem of course, is that the dam apparently is a fundamental part of the Iraqi electrical grid and perhaps flood control as well.
It's like a badly run nuclear plant which is a minor accident away from meltdown. Except that it could kill a lot more people than a major meltdown could.
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
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.
Not all ISIS members capture people. It's 2016. Stop with the racism already. You might hurt their feelings.
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.
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?
Great posting sabotaged by Slashdot's 1990's level unicode support.
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.
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/...
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!!!!!!
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
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
The dam was built on what's effectively ... drywall? How do you fix something like that?
You gather as much joint compound and tape as you can possibly find.