I'm surprised this story hasn't gotten much attention in the press. It seems pretty damn ominous.
As world attention focuses on the daily slaughter in Iraq, a devastating disaster is impending in the north of the country, where the wall of a dam holding back the Tigris river north of Mosul city is in danger of imminent collapse.
"It could go at any minute," says a senior aid worker who has knowledge of the struggle by US and Iraqi engineers to save the dam. "The potential for disaster is very great."
This dam was built by Saddam more than 20 years ago. The problem is that it was built in the worst possible place, on top of soluble gypsum and limestone that is constantly dissolving.
The Iraqis have been trying to shore it up since right after it was finished. Apparently, however, the dissolution of the limestone is occurring at a more rapid pace now.
According to one source, the chance of a total and immediate failure of the dam is now believed to be "reasonably high" at current water levels and "most certain" within the next few years.
The dam holds back 8 billion cubic feet of water. If it does collapse, it is estimated that it would flood 70 percent of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city with 1.7 million people. It would inflict severe damage on numerous towns downstream and possibly all the way to Baghdad.
It would be the equivalent of Katrina flooding New Orleans. And it doesn't sound like there is much to be done about it. One of these days it is going to go.
The effort to prevent the collapse of the dam is overseen by the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources. The US Army Corps of Engineers has made continual efforts to monitor the deterioration and undertake remedial action. But a US report, obtained separately from the embassy statement, says that "due to fundamental and irreversible flaws existing in the dam's foundation, the US Army Corps of Engineers believes that the safety of the Mosul Dam against a potential catastrophic failure cannot be guaranteed".
...
"Everybody knows about the threat but they have other preoccupations and, in the case of foreigners, it is now conveniently in Iraqi hands." He said that on some US communications equipment, there was a panic button to be pressed as soon as the dam began to give way. The unstable bedrock beneath the dam has been known about for a long time. The Iraqi government has been trying to patch it up for 19 years. It is not clear why the dam, known as the "Saddam Dam" prior to 2003, was built where it is, given the solubility of the rock underneath it.