Failure of Iraq's Mosul Dam: A Catastrophe Waiting to Happen

the 21st century has not been kind to the nation of Iraq a nation that's had to weather incredible destruction and violence in the last few decades and certainly not by choice from a large scale Invasion and yearslong occupation by a global superpower to the crosshairs of an exceptionally ruthless jihadist organization to the center point of a long tug-of war between the more powerful nations of the world Iraq is a nation that's had more than its share of hardship but even with everything that Iraq has been through even with everything it's survived the worst of all may still be yet to come the worst ticking time bomb in all of Iraq has little to do with ideology little to do with Geo politics and little to do with history at least all indirectly that time bomb is the mosul dam a monolith in Iraq's Northern deserts with the potential to bring death and destruction to the millions living Down River from crisis to crisis from war to war the collapse of the mosul dam has been the threat held over Iraq's head for generations and by all accounts it's a miracle that the thing has survived this long so on today's episode of Mega projects we're going to be discovering the massive threat that is the most all damn how it was built in the first place and why it's brought Iraq so close to the brink and how it was finally fixed if that is you trust it was fixed at [Music] all today's video is brought to you by buy Squarespace look Squarespace is the ultimate place to build a website if you know nothing about design like me or coding like me or just technology like me but you need a website like me well Squarespace is the place to do it they have something called fluid engine and templates you go in there you choose a template and then you use fluid engine which is like a Next Generation drag and drop editor uh you swap out the photos you swap out the text you move things where they should be and boom you have a good-looking website I built my website I mean initially in less 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isn't it so if you're ready to take your online presence to the next level go to squarespace.com meegar projects for a free trial and when you're ready to launch don't forget to use the code Mega projects to save 10% of your first purchase of a website or a domain and now back to today's video [Music] to trace the history of the Mosel Dam we first got to focus on a single person one around whom the entire modern history of Iraq has revolved for decades Saddam Hussein born in 1937 and officially claiming Iraq presidency in 1979 Hussein would do a whole lot of things over the course of his three decade long authoritarian rule but one of those things was to build a big Dam Iraq had already been looking at building a dam north of mosul for a few years before Saddam took over and in fact the potential project became a sort of revolving door for international experts who weren't inclined to tell Iraq what he wanted to hear first a British firm was asked to come in and evaluate the site and then the Americans then the Soviets then the fins and the yugoslavs and then the French and finally the Swiss the first five teams to come through and check out this particular site all agreed there were better places to form a massive Dam instead of the relatively unstable ground in this particular spot of Iraq and the latter two firms to consult on the site the French and the Swiss wouldn't ultimately take the Reigns in building the thing but the eighth time was the charm for the Iraqi government and in 1981 the process was underway most of the builders at the site would be Chinese Nationals while the Iraqi administrators and ministers in charge of the project were reportedly afraid that they'd be hanged if the project was not a success 19 Chinese laborers would die in the process including many who fell into wet cement and could have been fished out except delaying the project long enough to save them would have risked the cement hardening too soon as for why there needed to be a dam here at all we've got to give 1970s Iraq a bit of credit far from a simple vanity project having a dam north of mosul was a pretty good idea it was built on the tigis river which had a tendency to flood Downstream including the capital city of Iraq not only that but building a dam would afford Iraq better control of its water resources allowing for more complex irrigation networks a more stable water supply for crops and thus a more successful agriculture industry RIT large the construction process wasn't seamless by any means the area that was supposed to be flooded to create the Dam's Reservoir happened to contain several important archaeological sites but after a several year Mad Dash in which several Iraqi and foreign archaeological Expeditions dug out as many historical artifacts as they could the water level eventually Rose to swallow most of the landscape the dam would start generating electricity in July of 1986 and since then it's been in near continuous operation so before we get into the reasons why this Dam poses such a danger it's worth taking the time to discuss what exactly it was built into formerly known as Saddam Dam in honor of Saddam Hussein and today referred to as the mosul dam in honor of the city it primarily serves it's a hydroelectric Dam with a main power station generating 750 megaw or just over a million horsepowers worth of energy that power station includes four individual turbine generators and the dam also includes a secondary power plant with an additional capacity of 250 megawatt and a secondary so-called run-of the river dam Downstream that's responsible for another 82 megaw when the dam is at full capacity its Reservoir Lake to hook holds nearly 3 cubic M of water that's 11.1 cubic km to collect that Reservoir the dam relies mostly on the flow of the tigas but also captures snow melt that flows Southward from Turkey the dam itself Rises 113 M from the grounds 371 ft with a total length of 3.4 km 2.1 Mi at its cresting points it's 10 m or 33 ft thick it Fe as two spillways including a large concrete Mage choot that siphons off any water that gets above the damn safe water level and something called a fuse plug which will allow flood waters to spill over the top safely if they rise too high it's overseen by the ministry of water resources which also manages the unfinished Bouche Dam which when complete should be able to catch a gigantic wave caused by a flood from the Mosel Dam Upstream all in all the Mosel Dam branks as the fourth largest in the Middle East and generates well over 3,000 gwatt hours annually and after to power the city of mosol Downstream with a population of 1.7 [Music] million now when it comes to the Myriad problems involved with this particular Dam we've got to start with one final element of its construction the mosal dam is an embankment structure that is to say it's built by compacting layers upon layers of Earth as well as a layer of crushed stone to prevent erosion in order to sit in the way of the river and literally prevent it from flowing further that's a technique that involves some cost and benefits specifically the benefits are that embankment dams are relatively cheap to build and they should be able to adapt over time and hold the pressure of the water better than most rigid structures like ones made of concrete however they're also much more vulnerable to deterioration especially due to flowing water they're relatively weak for their size and they're permeable by water making it more likely that small leaks might occur and lead to a much larger catastrophe in the case of the mosal dam that on its own might not be so bad it except for the additional issue of what the dam is made of it lies on a foundation of gypsum a soft mineral that's used in things like plaster drywall or sidewalk chalk and the trouble with gypson is that it's soluble that is to say it can dissolve in water which is really not what you want in a dam to be clear this is something that Iraq was well aware of before they built the thing in fact that's why the country went through five sets of advisors who didn't tell them what they wanted to hear before finally getting a few teams who understood that their warnings would fall on De anyway nor did Iraq follow any of the recommendations given to it by the Consortium of Engineers who did agree to build the new death trap instead they cut Corners to speed up the project using a barrier called a grout curtain to protect the area directly below the dam and around the foundation but not nearly to the extent that they'd been advised to do a Consulting engineer who'd inspected the project and oh would speak to the New Yorker about his experience decades later told of sinkholes he saw popping up all around the dam and water bubbling up from the ground Downstream even just a few months after the dam was completed so the Dam's not great but if you're remember there might be a Saving Grace Downstream the Bouche Dam which Iraq has gone to the trouble of building just in case something does go wrong with a mosul dam Upstream if catastrophe strikes the badam will be able to catch the flood before it kills Millions right well unfortunately there are two key problems with the bche dam that they're pointing out firstly it's always a tough day if you're asking whether the seemingly inevitable collapse of your massive Dam will be stopped by another Dam that you haven't yet tested because if you were to test it you'd have to allow the collapse of the dam that you're worried about or put so much water in the bche Dam's Reservoir that if the mosul dam did collapse while you were testing it then you've just doubled the size of the resulting flood and secondly well you'd probably want the Bouche Dam to be complete which it isn't a present after being started 36 years ago the dam is 40% complete and hasn't been worked on in decades and if weren't all bad enough we've got to add in one more factor that makes a damn collapse north of mosul seem like a hell of a Dodge bullet so far and that fact is war war became a rather immediate concern around the mosal dam during the Gulf War the US actually bombed the power generator attached to the dam during their air offensive but the dam remained intact in 2003 it was put in the crossfire again during the invasion of Iraq by a coalition led by the United States in that time the dam became a primary point of concern among military intelligence Personnel Chief among their concerns were that Saddam Hussein who wouldn't be captured for several months after the invasion began might have intended to use the dam as a bargaining ship why the dam with explosives and Saddam could have held the entire city of mosul Hostage blow the dam and the city would have been washed away potentially with mass numbers of Coalition troops in the wat's path we should mention here that the dam is widely understood to be survivable under aerial bombardment but the same can't be said for a sabotage attempt using explosives placed on specific stress points luckily the dam survived the 2003 Invasion unscathed but an even worse crisis would befall it some 11 years later starting in June of 2014 that's when a new Force surged into mosul for the first time the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria better known as Isis now we imagine it's not a particularly controversial take to say that literal Isis showing up at your doorstep is never a good thing but if there was any place that the presence of the jihadists was particularly unwelcome it was mosul after the next several weeks Isis would work its way northward from mosul tracing a path up the tigis river toward the dam on August the 7th despite a bitter and Valiant stand by Kurdish pesmerga forces Isis was able to claim the structure evicting most of the 1500 or so workers who had been tried to keep it in operation despite the ongoing War within hours Isis have posted one of their trademark propaganda videos depicting a fighter carrying their Black Flag across the dam itself immediately liberating the dam became the top priority for every force that was in the process of are fighting Isis including not just the Western Coalition but Kurdish and Iraqi forces as well in a best case scenario the rest of the world reasons the jihadists would use the dam to restrict the flow of water and electricity Downstream giving themselves complete leverage over mcel and exerting significant pressure on Baghdad in the worst case scenario well one of the many reasons that Isis worried the rest of the world so much was the way that their messaging often drifted toward the apocalyptic now the group could take an incredible number of lives if they so wished doing in a few days with explosives at the dam and roadblocks obstructing the way out of mosul what would have otherwise taken them years of concerted War fighting after 10 T days of Isis control over the dam it was liberated by a combined pesura and Iraqi Army offensive assisted by US Air power despite the intense fighting the dam never ruptured perhaps a sign that Isis hadn't intended to blow it or perhaps simply because they hadn't been allowed the time to do so but with Western officials now traveling to the dam to scope it out the world became acutely aware of just what had been going on there for years because of that water soluble Rock we mentioned earlier upon which the entire dam is built teams of hundreds of laborers and Engineers had worked around the clock for years in order to pump a mixture primarily comprising cement into the parts of the dam Foundation that were washing away failed to do so and the entire thing might have collapsed and it was hard to get a sense of how fast that might happen meaning that even if Isis hadn't meant to blow the dam they risked destroying it anyway if they didn't keep up the concrete pumping operations the USMC in Baghdad issued Stark warning in 2015 quoting in part mosul Dam faces a serious and unprecedented risk of catastrophic failure without warning the UN echoed the claims as did Iraqi Engineers who'd gotten a chance to inspect it but the Iraqi government has remained very hesitant to take any action likely for fear that acknowledging the vulnerability would lead to a crushing public backlash in the years since occasional updates have come out about the situation at the dam but while a brief few months of repairs alongside an Italian firm was enough to get the Iraqi government declaring Victory a few months later those repairs only fix the imminent signs of structural failure when it comes to the Dam's much more fundamental issues the updates are always the same lack of progress lack of progress lack of progress so if we're being generous we can at least say that the ticking time bomb that is the mosul dam has had a bit of time put back on the clock but nonetheless the dam is still one one unexpected earthquake one material shortage or one Upstream flood away from collapse so it's worth taking the time to examine just what it would be like if the worst does happen and the result would be nothing short of biblical in the event of a catastrophic failure at the mosal dam the resulting tsunami would be staggering to Behold a wall of water 45 M or 150 ft high would be let loose on the surrounding landscape with well over 15 cubic kilm of reservoir flowing immediately behind in a best case scenario the city of mosul would have 4 hours from the moment of the Dam's collapse before most of the city is underwater to say nothing at the time it takes for word to spread and an alert to go across the City's population if some of the most troubling estimates are correct then mosul wouldn't have 4 hours at all it would have two because of Iraq's difficulties in taking an accurate census it's unclear how many people would be in the water's path Upstream from mosul but within the city population estimates are somewhat more dependable in all likelihood the number is somewhere around 1.7 million many of whom live or work in the downtown areas that would be directly in the water's path with the better part of a city consumed in the wave with rubble and shrapnel now thundering across the landscape as well as water the wave would only continue Downstream are a number of towns that would likely be nearly or totally wiped out hamam Al alil population 25,000 tirit pre-war population 160,000 and Samara pre-war population 350,000 along with numerous smaller Villages and other settlements within 60 to 70 hours as the flood carries along the rough outline of the river tigis it will reach the city of Baghdad estimated population 6 million their flood waters are still expected to rise to a standing depth of at least 8 m filling the tigis river flood plane and carrying on even further in an absolute best case scenario the hearts of Iraq's two largest cities will be gutted completely eviscerated of human infrastructure while washing away some of the nation's most critical establishments destroying hundreds of thousands of Homes at a minimum and setting off a cascading humanitarian crisis that would likely result in Mass shortages of electricity safe drinking water food and medical care for millions of people in all the possible scenarios worse than that all of the above still happens but not everybody gets out of the waters path in time estimates for the likely number of fatalities caused by a complete failure of the mosul dam ranged from 500,000 on the low end to 1 million on the high now at this point in our episode we have got to stress not only for our regular audience but for any policy maker who might be listening that there is still time the Mosel Dam has not yet collapsed and if the word of the Iraqi government is to be trusted which to be clear we're not confident in recommending that anyone does then the long-term Band-Aid solutions that have kept the dam standing thus far are still in effect there is a critical window to fix the Dam's issues and that window is now quite frankly it is very difficult to estimate a cost for which it would not be worth saving anywhere from half a million to a million lives at some point in the mid to near future but the estimated price tag of refurbishment some 4 billion US do when adjusting for inflation is nowhere near steep enough to justify an action on the matter as for what's needed at the dam there are a few key measures that would go a long way there's the Iraqi environmentalist aam aashro for the Wilson Center in 2016 some companies are proposed forming a 200 M or 600t slurry wall underneath the dam this is a costly process and it's on a scale that's never been done before other organizations have advocated the approach Iraq took decades ago with the badou dam which was supposed to be able to capture all of flood waters before the worst destruction could occur but finishing the bedouch dam or building something new will take years either way and during that time the damn seepage issues will be continuing to get worse or's proposal nearly a decade ago was to have Iraq pay turkey to Dam the Tigris further upstream and then send water Downstream to Iraq unfortunately the window to Ena that proposal has since closed in recent years new proposals to fix the issues have centered around the idea of building a protection Dam Downstream but as of now there's been no tangible effort to Lurch such a project to life in a nation where the current Administration seems unlikely at best to untake such a massive investment it's always going to be difficult to find anybody else to put the bill that's especially true in a nation so geopolitically fraught as Iraq where both Western Nations and non-western ones seek to gain influence but if there's any time to put diplomatic finger wagging geopolitical pride and questions of regional alignment to the side this is it Iraq needs a solution to the mosal dam issue it needs one fast and quite frankly we couldn't care less who solves it the issue needs to be handled right with solutions that are Dependable for the long term in order to ensure that the millions of people who live their lives on the river tigis aren't eventually wiped out by the same Waters that sustain them whether it's America the EU Russia China Iran India Brazil Saudi Arabia or somebody else who fixes the dam we don't care incredible human potential and the risk of incredible human suffering hang in the balance so let's not drag our feet [Music]

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 554,463

Keywords: dvs iraq mosul dam, catastrophic failure, mosul dam, water resource management, middle east, saddam dam, iraq

Id: 1tQqx4wgFYA

Length: 19min 57sec (1197 seconds)

Published: Sat May 25 2024