Category: Analogies

At 13:15 hours of 13th August 1935, following very heavy rainfalls, one of the two dams which formed the large hydroelectric reservoir of Molare, in Valle Orba (Piedmont, Italy), collapsed together with a portion of the foundation rocks. The mudflow that poured out of the breach caused the death of some 110-115 persons and very serious damage to several villages and infrastructures of the valley. This hydraulic barrage gave way under the push of a mass of water and mud assessed as 20 to 25 million cubic metres. The mudflow thus generated ran down the whole valley destroying everything on

The second known disaster due to the failure of mine tailings dams took place on 1st December 1928 in the mining village of Sewell, Chile, where a similar incident had already taken place in 1915. The Barahona sand tailings dam, a facility serving the El Teniente copper mine, located in the Andes south of Santiago, was over 2 km long, 63 m high and contained 29.5 million tons of mine waste material. Following a very strong earthquake, the outer embankment of the tailings dam suddenly collapsed. As a consequence, millions of tons of mud flowed into the riverbeds of the

On 1st December 1923, the failure of the Gleno dam caused a huge disaster, which devastated the Scalve valley in the province of Bergamo in Lombardy (northern Italy). From the reservoir at 1500 m a.s.l., 6 million cubic metres of water, mud and debris poured down the slope as far as Lake Iseo in just half an hour. 356 people lost their lives, although the final toll of victims is still uncertain. At 7:15 hours, the central pylon of the dam collapsed and the imposing mass of water poured over the valley, destroying everything that it encountered in its path,

The first known disaster due to the failure of mine tailings dams took place on 15th June 1915 in the mining village of Sewell, Province of Rancagua, Chile. After days of intense precipitation, there was a mud spill from the summit of the tailings dam’s embankment serving the Agua Dulce copper mine when it was in full activity. Following mud overflowing, the 61 m high embankment collapsed due to flow failure. Some 180,000 cubic metres of material leaked out of the impoundment. No data are available concerning environmental damage or loss of human lives. Chronology of major tailings dam failures