Dam failure

The reservoir emptying through the failed Teton Dam

A dam is a barrier across flowing water that obstructs, directs or slows down the flow, often creating a reservoir, lake or impoundments. Most dams have a section called a spillway or weir over or through which water flows, either intermittently or continuously, and some have hydroelectric power generation systems installed.

Dams are considered "installations containing dangerous forces" under International Humanitarian Law due to the massive impact of a possible destruction on the civilian population and the environment. Dam failures are comparatively rare, but can cause immense damage and loss of life when they occur. In 1975 the failure of the Banqiao Reservoir Dam and other dams in Henan Province, China caused more casualties than any other dam failure in history. The disaster killed an estimated 171,000 people and 11 million people lost their homes.

Main causes of dam failure

International special sign for works and installations containing dangerous forces

Common causes of dam failure include:

• Sub-standard construction materials/techniques (Gleno Dam)
• Spillway design error (South Fork Dam, near failure of Glen Canyon Dam)
• Geological instability caused by changes to water levels during filling or poor surveying (Malpasset Dam).
• Sliding of a mountain into the reservoir (Vajont Dam – not exactly a dam failure, but caused nearly the entire volume of said reservoir to be displaced and overtop the dam)
• Poor maintenance, especially of outlet pipes (Lawn Lake Dam, Val di Stava dam collapse)
• Extreme inflow (Shakidor Dam)
• Human, computer or design error (Buffalo Creek Flood, Dale Dike Reservoir, Taum Sauk pumped storage plant)
• Internal erosion or piping, especially in earthen dams (Teton Dam)
• Earthquakes

Deliberate dam failure

A notable case of deliberate dam failure (prior to the Humanitarian Law rulings) was the British Royal Air Force Dambusters raid on Germany in World War II (codenamed "Operation Chastise"), in which three German dams were selected to be breached in order to impact on German infrastructure and manufacturing and power capabilities deriving from the Ruhr and Eder rivers. This raid later became the basis for several films.

Other cases include the Chinese bombing of multiple dams during Typhoon Nina (1975) in an attempt to drain them before their reservoirs overflowed. The typhoon produced what is now considered a 1-in-2000 years flood, which few if any of these dams were designed to survive.

List of major dam failures

Dam/incident	Year	Location	Fatalities	Details
Marib Dam	575	Sheba, Yemen	Unknown	Unknown causes, possibly neglect. The consequent failure of the irrigation system provoked the migration of up to 50,000 people from Yemen.
Puentes Dam	1802	Lorca, Spain	608	1,800 houses and 40,000 trees destroyed.
Bilberry reservoir	1852	Holme Valley, United Kingdom	81	Failed due to heavy rain.
Dale Dike Reservoir	1864	South Yorkshire, United Kingdom	244	Defective construction, small leak in wall grew until dam failed. More than 600 houses were damaged or destroyed.
Iruka Lake Dam	1868	Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture (then Owari Province), Japan	941	Under the influence of heavy rain from late April, this soil dam collapsed on May 13. Water accumulated in Lake Iruka overflowed downstream, causing severe damage to Inuyama, Iwakura, Kasugai, Tsushima Yatomi, and to Komaki. 807 houses were destroyed, with another 11709 flooded.
Mill River Dam	1874	Williamsburg, United States	139	Lax regulations and cost cutting led to an insufficient design, which fell apart when the reservoir was full. 600 million gallons of water were released, wiping out 4 towns and making national headlines. This dam break led to increased regulation of dam construction.
South Fork Dam	1889	Johnstown, United States	2,209	Blamed locally on poor maintenance by owners; court deemed it an "Act of God". Followed exceptionally heavy rainfall. Caused Johnstown flood. 1,600 homes were destroyed.
Walnut Grove Dam	1890	Wickenburg, United States	100	Heavy snow and rain following public calls by the dam's chief engineer to strengthen the earthen structure.
Gohna Lake dam	1894	Garhwal, India	1	Failure of a landslide dam. Authorities had been able to evacuate the valley.
Austin Dam	1900	Texas, United States	8	Extreme current caused failure.
Hauser Dam	1908	Helena, United States	0	Heavy flooding coupled with poor foundation quality. Workers managed to warn people downstream.
Broken Down Dam	1908	Fergus Falls, United States	0	Design flaw. Four downstream dams and bridge destroyed. Mills, homes and farms flooded. No fatalities.
Austin Dam	1911	Austin, United States	78	Poor design, use of dynamite to remedy structural problems. Destroyed paper mill and much of the town of Austin.
Desná Dam	1916	Czech Republic (then Desná, Austria-Hungary)	62	Construction flaws caused the dam failure.
Lake Toxaway Dam	1916	Transylvania County, United States	0	Heavy rains caused the dam to give way. Dam was later rebuilt in the 1960s
Sweetwater Dam	1916	San Diego County, United States	0	Over-topped from flooding; partial failure.
Lower Otay Dam	1916	San Diego County, United States	14	Over-topped from flooding.
Tigra Dam	1917	Gwalior, India	1,000	Failed due to water infiltrating through foundation. Possibly more fatalities.
Gleno Dam	1923	Province of Bergamo, Italy	356	Poor construction and design.
Llyn Eigiau dam and Coedty reservoir	1925	Dolgarrog, United Kingdom	17	The outflow from Llyn Eigiau destroyed Coedty reservoir. Contractor blamed cost-cutting in construction but 25" of rain had fallen in preceding 5 days.
St. Francis Dam	1928	Santa Clarita, United States	600	Geological instability of canyon wall that could not have been detected with available technology of the time.
Secondary Dam of Sella Zerbino	1935	Molare, Italy	111	Geological unstable base combined with flood.
Horonai Dam	1941	Ōmu, Hokkaido, Japan	60	A torrential rain struck around Horonai River area. This is the dam collapse in the wake, and according to official confirmed, the lost houses reached to 32.
Nant-y-Gro dam	1942	Elan Valley, United Kingdom	0	Destroyed during preparation for Operation Chastise in World War II.
Edersee Dam	1943	Hesse, Germany	70	Destroyed by bombing during Operation Chastise in World War II. Widespread destruction.
Möhne Dam	1943	Ruhr, Germany	1,579	Destroyed by bombing during Operation Chastise in World War II. 11 factories were destroyed, 114 seriously damaged.
Heiwa Lake Dam	1951	Kameoka, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan	117	In heavy rain, it swallowed the muddy stream of the village of the downstream portion and collapse the peace pond of irrigation ponds, Kameoka and damage in the surrounding area of 80 houses damaged, according to local official confirmed.
Tangiwai disaster	1953	Whangaehu River, New Zealand	151	Failure of Mount Ruapehu's crater lake.
Taisho Lake Dam	1951	Ide, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan	108	Under the influence of heavy rain, outburst with a Ninotani Lake Dam.
Vega de Tera	1959	Ribadelago, Spain	144	According to dam workers testimonies, the grounds had serious structural deficiencies due to poor construction. On the night of January 9, a 150 meters long portion of the contention wall collapsed letting out nearly 8 million cubic meters of stored water.
Malpasset dam	1959	Côte d'Azur, France	423	Geological fault possibly enhanced by explosives work during construction; initial geo-study was not thorough. Two villages were destroyed.
Kurenivka mudslide	1961-03-13	Kiev, Ukraine (then Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union)	1,500	Impoundment of the clay slurry reservoir (storing the waste of the local brick factories) failed after heavy rains, inundating the Kurenivka neighborhood with meters of mud, up to 2,000 fatalities.
Panshet Dam	1961	Pune, India	1,000	Dam wall burst due to pressue of accumulated rain water.
Baldwin Hills Reservoir	1963	Los Angeles, United States	5	Subsidence caused by over-exploitation of local oil field. 277 homes destroyed.
Spaulding Pond Dam (Mohegan Park)	1963	Norwich, United States	6	More than $6 million estimated damages.
Vajont Dam	1963	Monte Toc, Italy	2,000	Strictly not a dam failure, since the dam structure did not collapse and is still standing. Filling the reservoir caused geological failure in valley wall, leading to 110 km/h landslide into the lake; water escaped in a wave over the top of dam. Valley had been incorrectly assessed stable. Several villages completely wiped out.
Swift Dam	1964-06-10	Montana, United States	28	Caused by heavy rains.
Mina Plakalnitsa	1966	Vratsa, Bulgaria	107	A tailings dam at Plakalnitsa copper mine near the city of Vratsa failed. A total 450,000 cu m of mud and water inundated Vratsa and the nearby village of Zgorigrad, which suffered widespread damage. The official death toll is 107, but the unofficial estimate is around 500 killed.
Sempor Dam	1967	Central Java Province, Republic of Indonesia	2,000	Flash floods over-topped the dam during construction.
Certej dam failure	1971	Certej Mine, Romania	89	A tailings dam built too tall collapsed, flooding Certeju de Sus with toxic tailings.
Buffalo Creek Flood	1972	West Virginia, United States	125	Unstable loose constructed dam created by local coal mining company, collapsed in heavy rain. 1,121 injured, 507 houses destroyed, over 4,000 left homeless.
Canyon Lake Dam	1972	South Dakota, United States	238	Flooding, dam outlets clogged with debris. 3,057 injuries, over 1,335 homes and 5,000 automobiles destroyed.
Banqiao and Shimantan Dams	1975	Zhumadian, China	171,000	Extreme rainfall, beyond the planned design capability of the dam, dumped on China by Typhoon Nina. 11 million people lost their homes. Dam would later be rebuilt between 1986 and 1993.
Teton Dam	1976	Idaho, United States	11	Water leakage through earthen wall, leading to dam failure. 13,000 head of cattle died.
Laurel Run Dam	1977	Johnstown, United States	40	Heavy rainfall and flooding that over-topped the dam. Six other dams failed the same day, killing five people.
Kelly Barnes Dam	1977	Georgia, United States	39	Unknown, possibly design error as dam was raised several times by owners to improve power generation.
Machchu-2 Dam	1979	Morbi, India	5,000	Heavy rain and flooding beyond spillway capacity. Old estimates were 1,800–25,000 but a 2011 book by Sandesara & Wooten refined the bracket to 5,000–10,000.
Wadi Qattara Dam	1979	Benghazi, Libya	0	Flooding beyond discharge and storage capacity damaged the main dam and destroyed the secondary dam in the scheme.
Lawn Lake Dam	1982	Rocky Mountain National Park, United States	3	Outlet pipe erosion; dam under-maintained due to location.
Tous Dam	1982	Valencia, Spain	8	Heavy flooding coupled with poor quality of the dam wall, lack of qualified staff and negligence of a warning of heavy rain in the area. On the next day, newspapers reported possibly 40 fatalities and 25 disappeared but in the coming days the count went down to 8 or 9. One year later, LaVanguardia spoke of 25.
Val di Stava dam	1985	Tesero, Italy	268	Poor maintenance and low margin for error in design; outlet pipes failed leading to pressure on dam.
Upriver Dam	1986	Washington state, United States	0	Lightning struck power system, turbines shut down. Water rose behind dam while trying to restart. Backup power systems failed, could not raise spillway gates in time. Dam overtopped(rebuilt).
Kantale Dam	1986-04-20	Kantale, Sri Lanka	180	Poor maintenance, leakage, and consequent failure. Destroyed over 1600 houses and 2000 acres of paddy fields.
Peruća Dam detonation	1993	Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia	0	Not strictly a dam failure as there was a detonation of pre-positioned explosives by retreating Serb Forces.
Merriespruit tailings dam	1994	Free State, South Africa	17	Dam failed after a heavy thunderstorm. The dam was in an unacceptable condition prior to failure. Widespread devastation and environmental damage.
Saguenay Flood	1996	Quebec, Canada	10	Problems started after two weeks of constant rain, which severely engorged soils, rivers and reservoirs. Post-flood enquiries discovered that the network of dikes and dams protecting the city was poorly maintained.
Meadow Pond Dam	1996	New Hampshire, United States	1	Design and construction deficiencies resulted in failure in heavy icing conditions.
Opuha Dam	1997	Canterbury, New Zealand	0	Heavy rain during construction caused failure, dam was later completed.
Doñana disaster	1998-04-25	Andalusia, Spain	0	Over-steepened dam failed by sliding on weak clay foundation, releasing 4–5 million cubic metres of acidic mine tailings into the River Agrio, a tributary of the River Guadiamar, which is the main water source for the Doñana National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Shihgang Dam	1999-09-21	Taiwan	0	Caused by damage sustained during the 921 earthquake.
Martin County coal slurry spill	2000-10-11	Martin County, United States	0	Failure of a coal slurry impoundment. The water supply for over 27,000 residents was contaminated. The spill was 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill and one of the worst environmental disasters ever in the southeastern United States
Vodní nádrž Soběnov	2002	Soběnov, Czech Republic	0	Extreme rainfall during the 2002 European floods.
Zeyzoun Dam	2002	Zeyzoun, Syria	22	2,000 individuals displaced and over 10,000 directly affected.
Ringdijk Groot-Mijdrecht (nl)	2003	Wilnis, Netherlands	0	Strictly not a dam or dike failure. The original Peat soil surrounding a polder (where peat had subsidized due to oxidization) was pushed away by the water in the canal. The peat became lighter than water during the 2003 drought. The real cause was new wooden piling along the canal. This new piling was water tight and therefore the peat soil dried out. Around 1,500 residents had to be evacuated.
Hope Mills Dam	2003–05	North Carolina, United States	0	Caused by heavy rains. 1,600 people evacuated.
Silver Lake Dam	2003-05-14	Michigan, United States	0	Heavy rains caused earthen dam and bank to wash away. 1,800 people evacuated.
Big Bay Dam	2004	Mississippi, United States	0	A small hole in the dam grew and eventually led to failure. 104 buildings damaged or destroyed.
Camará Dam	2004-06-17	Paraiba, Brazil	3	Poor maintenance. 3000 people homeless. A second failure happened 11 days after.
Shakidor Dam	2005	Pasni, Pakistan	70	Sudden and extreme flooding caused by abnormally severe rain.
Taum Sauk reservoir	2005	Lesterville, United States	0	Computer/operator error; gauges intended to mark dam full were not respected; dam continued to fill. Minor leakages had also weakened the wall through piping. The dam of the lower reservoir withstood the onslaught of the flood.
Campos Novos Dam	2006	Campos Novos, Brazil	0	Tunnel collapse.
Gusau Dam	2006	Gusau, Nigeria	40	Heavy flooding. Approximately 500 homes were destroyed, displacing 1,000 people.
Ka Loko Dam	2006	Kauai, United States	7	Heavy rain and flooding. Several possible specific factors to include poor maintenance, lack of inspection and illegal modifications.
Lake Delton	2008-06-09	Lake Delton, United States	0	Failure due to June 2008 Midwest floods.
Koshi Barrage	2008	Koshi Zone, Nepal	250	Heavy rain. The flood affected over 2.3 million people in the northern part of Bihar.
Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill	2008-12-22	Roane County, United States	0	Failure of a fly ash slurry pond.
Algodões Dam	2009-05-27	Piaui, Brazil	7	Heavy rain. 80 people injured, 2000 homeless.
Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam	2009-08-17	Sayanogorsk, Russia	75	Not a dam failure, but rather the power station accident where the turbine 2 broke apart violently due to the metal fatigue caused by overlooked vibrations, flooding the turbine hall and causing the ceiling to collapse. The dam itself was unaffected, and the power station rebuilt within 5 years.
Situ Gintung Dam	2009	Tangerang, Indonesia	98	Poor maintenance and heavy monsoon rain.
Kyzyl-Agash Dam	2010	Qyzylaghash, Kazakhstan	43	Heavy rain and snowmelt. 300 people were injured and over 1000 evacuated from the village.
Hope Mills Dam	2010	North Carolina, United States	0	Sinkhole caused dam failure. Second failure of the dam, will be replaced.
Testalinda Dam	2010-06-13	Oliver, Canada	0	Heavy Rain, low maintenance. Destroyed at least 5 homes. Buried Highway 97.
Delhi Dam	2010-07-24	Iowa, United States	0	Heavy rain, flooding. Around 8,000 people had to be evacuated.
Niedow Dam	2010-08-07	Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland	1	Heavy rain, over-topped from flooding.
Ajka alumina plant accident	2010-10-04	Ajka, Hungary	10	Failure of concrete impound wall on alumina plant tailings dam. One million cubic meters of red mud contaminated a large area, within days the mud had reached the Danube.
Kenmare Resources tailings dam	2010-10-08	Topuito, Mozambique	1	Failure of tailings dam at titanium mine. 300 homes had been rebuilt.
Fujinuma Dam	2011-03-11	Sukagawa, Japan	8	Failed after 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. 7 dead and 1 unknown. Japanese authorities state that the dam failure was caused by the earthquake, whose death toll is not reported worldwide since 1930.
Campos dos Goytacazes dam	2012-01-04	Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil	0	Failed after a period of flooding. 4000 people displaced.
Ivanovo Dam	2012-02-06	Biser, Bulgaria	8	Failed after a period of heavy snowmelt. A crack in the dam went un-repaired for years. Eight people killed and several communities flooded.
Köprü Dam	2012-02-24	Adana Province, Turkey	10	A gate in the diversion tunnel broke after a period of heavy rain during the reservoir's first filing. The accident killed ten workers.
Dakrong 3 Dam	2012-10-07	Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam	0	Poor design, Typhoon Gaemi flood surge.
Tokwe Mukorsi Dam	2014-02-04	Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe	0	Downstream slope failure on a 90.3 m (296 ft) tall embankment dam, possibly as the reservoir was being filled. Residents evacuated upstream.
Germano mine tailings dams	2015-11-05	Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil	17	One tailings dam collapse. One village destroyed, 600 people evacuated, 19 missing. Sixty-million cubic meters of iron waste sludge polluted Doce River, and the sea near the river's mouth.

See also

• Grout curtain
• List of hydroelectric power station failures
• Structural integrity and failure

External links

• A list of dam failures and incidents in the United States Dam Safety.org
• Chronology of major tailings dam failures from 1960 WISE Uranium Project
• Chanson, H. (2009) Application of the Method of Characteristics to the Dam Break Wave Problem Journal of Hydraulic Research, IAHR, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 41–49 doi:10.3826/jhr.2009.2865 (ISSN 0022-1686). Available as a pdf at [1]
• Dam Failure and Flood Event Case History Compilation Bureau of Reclamation