Your favorite subject Saar. Enjoy :D *** Mosul Dam is essentially a ticking time bomb, said Azzam Alwash, an Iraqi hydraulic engineer. It has been problematic long before the surge in Iraq by Islamic State, an al Qaeda spinoff, because of a mix of bad geography and poorly executed reconstruction and maintenance, U.S. officials say. A 2006 report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, one of the agencies advising the Iraqi government on the structure, called it the most dangerous dam in the world. The core of the problem is the gypsum base on which the Mosul Dam was built. Gypsum absorbs and dissolves in water, creating cavelike holes that have required filling with a mix of cement and other substances—a process called grouting—daily for three decades. Without grouting, said Mr. Alwash, the base would erode and unleash flooding, probably within six months. It would take just hours to flood Mosul, about 30 miles downstream. It would be like a tsunami 20 meters high, he said. You cannot run away fast enough. Atheel Nujaifi, governor of Nineveh province where Mosul sits, said the Islamic State completely controls the dam. Grouting stopped the day of the takeover, he said, because most employees, including all of the engineers, fled that Thursday. ***
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 05:46:03 +0000
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