Disasters Of The Century | Season 3 | Episode 57 | Malpasset Dam Failure | Ian Michael Coulson 

You'd be surprised. Most major cities have many earthen dams.

@@kimchi2780 I'd be surprised and concerned!

Thanks for your comment

or to hit the Emergency button

Wouldn't have helped much. The dam itself wasn't the issue, it was the geology

Opening the valve would probably only have delayed the inevitable since the water in the lake was still increasing at high rate. The dam failed at 21h00 when some people were still awake. We can speculate that the bodycount could be worse if the blow happened a few hours later while everyone was sleeping. Anyway, I visited the dam and the A8 autoroute is just a 1km downstream. At the time of the disaster, a huge bridge crossing the valley was being built so it's understable that autorities would want to damage it as the dam showed very few premature sign of a disaster. The dam basicly blew like a bottle of champagne. Sadly enough, the bridge under construction was blown away and had to be rebuilt.

The Stava dam in Norrhern Italy was also very bad.

I forget which Italian dam it was but which ever one failed because a landslide caused a surge over the top of the dam ~ the soil engineer were imprisoned for their negligence and the design engineers were given awards for making a dam that withstood that incredible surge of pressure.

@@izzojoseph2 that's the one I'm talking about. The Vajont dam. 9 October 1963

londoner71 ~ yes. Oddly, I remember the date but not the name. My Civil Engineering Water Instructor taught is about that. Both the soil and the dam itself are covered by CE discipline. One is how to properly design and the other is how to pay attention to all soil levels. It was a massive land slide. Pretty crazy

@@izzojoseph2 was 350 millions cubic meters of land, at a speed of 100 kmh. It generated a tsunami 250 meters high. The water running down the valley had such force that the entire town of Longarone was destroyed just by the movement of the air pushed out the very narrow valley by the water! It has been calculated that the force of the air movement was DOUBLE the strength of the Hiroshima blast! ...and what the air didn't destroyed... the 80 meter high wall of water did!

Did they construct a new dam or give up on the irrigation for the trees and crops?

@@LovinLife-pv7op The dam has never been rebuilt, nor has it been replaced. It was determined that the dam should never have been built there due to a tectonic fault near the left abutment, which failed. The remains still stand as they were, including pieces of the dam strewn along the river, and the site is fully open to visits with boards explaining the disaster.

Interviewing children and historian

Nope, you’d be spot on the mark. It’s still the case today unfortunately. Money buys “innocence.”

Water and fire, two absolute necessities for human life, but both of them will kill you.

equarg WELL SAID.

Your such a loser

RagingMoon1987 I was at those ruïns a few years ago

RagingMoon1987, they’re also done a program on the horrific Italian Stava Dam disaster. It is so sad.

The Johnstown PA flood killed more than 2,200 people.

They wil have it on their conscious forever if that

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Mark Viereck Usually never that simple. However, your life and most everyone else on the planet lives better because of engineers.

More often it's the accountants

It’s usually arrogance. Sometimes people just don’t listen or even care to learn about the environment around them.

Drag dot to end of clip and hit the replay button and there you go no adds.

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@@BadDayHQ Already did after the first one I watched. Great videos. :)

Have noticed the same.

Always!!!!! (right!!!??!!?! and at like 2-ish to 4-ish in the morning- it never fails!!!! 🤷🏻‍♀️😴)

equarg why? That was funny.

Lol

Thanks

Catie Liddell this is actually a TV show that used to be on called Disasters of the Century. They don't actually make them.

april blonski This channel is by the shows original producers actually... DOTC is a defunct series however sadly.

Yes I know. My point was, these are reruns, they don't make new ones. Soooo......

No, chdreturns actually specifically mentioned that the owners of the YT channel is by the show's original producers, just that they're no longer making new ones. I hope they do produce new ones again at some point, perhaps on Netflix or Hulu.

Thanks for the information. Very much appreciated! I hope they do produce new ones again at some point, perhaps on Netflix or Hulu.

MsJinkerson To me that's far too simplistic. There can be criminal negligence or even manslaughter however.

Not really. There are many possible causes for a failure: bad planning or design, poor workmanship, inadequate quality of materials, unknown hidden dangers, unique incidents that weaken a structure, inadequate maintenance, ignoring warning signs of impending failure, exceeding design limits, sabotage, and so on.

its an lesson for us all corporate greed and government intrests must never be put before the lives of its people because accidents of this scale simply do not happen thus france is not the great liberal democracy its revolutionary past dictates it is and i give strentgh to its new movement the yellow vests...vive la france vive la yellow vests vive la revolution!!

When someone cuts corners, deliberately ignores known hazards, is willfully blind to problems they should have seen, makes choices to save money at the expense of safety - yes, then they should pay for their misdeeds. When people have done their best with every intention AND every effort and expense taken to build something safe and shit happens... I don't think punishing people for things outside their knowledge and/or control is justifiable or does anyone any good.

Mmmm I think god should be held accountable but then people might argue he did not force people to make choices but seriously he allows a lot of shit to go down.

@@TheKeeperMadz : When one is Omniscient (not described in the Middle Eastern tomes), one can not say, "Well *I* didn't kno-o-ow!" There can be no "Freewill" when someone knows your actions tomorrow.

No problem with mine