Posted on 08/26/2014 10:15:39 AM PDT by thackney
...The first is the Mosul Dam, which stretches across the Tigris River in a valley north of Mosul, Iraq. As dams go, this one is a civil engineering horror. The dam was captured on Aug. 7 by the Islamic State, and retaken 10 days later by...
Should the two-mile-wide dam fail, which is likely, Mosul would be wiped out and the damage would extend to Baghdad. Loss of life could reach 500,000, and millions could be deprived of water and power: an immense catastrophe piled on the daily pain of Iraq.
The second dam, in southern Africa on the Zambezi River, is the Kariba. This 55-year-old dam, by some measures, is the world’s second largest. It was a civil engineering masterpiece and has held up well, given the spotty maintenance by its owners – Zambia, on the north bank and Zimbabwe, on the south bank.
But the Kariba Dam is predicted to fail within three years unless it undergoes massive repair. If it does, surging water would rip a vast trench down the length of the Zambezi River on its route to the Indian Ocean. The wall of water would take out another giant dam, Cahora Bassa, in Mozambique.
Loss of life could reach 3.5 million, with untold damage to wildlife. South central Africa would lose 40 percent of its electric supply....
The Mosul Dam was a rush job, ordered by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s without regard to the engineering realities of the site. It is anchored in gypsum, which dissolves in water. Daily, leaks in the foundation have to be plugged with grout -- a mixture of cement and sand. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the Mosul Dam is fundamentally the wrong structure for the location, and called it the “most dangerous dam in the world.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
History repeating itself. Mosul is the site of ancient Nineveh, and the Babylonians used the river to wash out the city and conquer it. See the Bible book of Nahum.
Like sticking your finger in a dyke....I would NEVER do that. I’d probably get the Shiite beaten out of me.
Loss of life could reach 500,000... I’m really sorry, but they said that like it’s a bad thing.
I think The Thunderbirds might have an airport/submarine station under the ice.
Secret Nazi moonbase. In the antarctic. Which is why it's secret.
If the Kurds are safe what’s the downside???
I’m going to pass on that one....too easy!!!
Just seeing if you were all awake, LOL
“Just seeing if you were all awake, LOL”
—
Good one,Grace.:-)
.
What will they think of next?
I believe they are WAY up high in the north in the mountains, but who knows what is happening in that shiitehole.
No, this is the antarctic, must be a moosebase.
#bringbackourdam
We don't have to be 'parents' to 48 year old crazy 'teenagers'. If their damn breaks they'll die sooner than they would have... maybe next time they'll elect people who aren't thugs.
Or they'll quit supporting monsters... or they'll modify a religion that casts aside 75% of their men as useless. (When one man has four wives - three men have none... no wives, no children, no real future... )and that's a part of this... we're dealing with a culture that has to kill off excess men)
I don't like the culture... Which is fine. I don't have to like it. But if they're here in our faces, or making calls on our treasure or killing off our citizens then we're involved.
Personally, if it was possible to build a wall around Muslim countries and never interact with them again it would be great. For them and for us. Maybe it can be a joint project.
The life expectancy of dams is 50 years. Most in the US have reached that.
That’s the answer to “Why did the little Dutch boy get slapped?”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.