The Dalongtan Dam ( Chinese 大 龙潭 水电站 , Pinyin Dàlóngtán Shuǐdiànzhàn or 大 龙潭 水利 枢纽 , Dàlóngtán Shuǐlì Shūniǔ ) is a dam near the city of Enshi in Hubei in central China for power generation and water regulation. It stands on the Qing Jiang , a tributary of the Yangtze River . The gravity dam has a height of 53 m, a length of 172 m and a structural volume of 120,000 m³, the reservoir has a size of 2396 km². The hydropower plant has an installed capacity of 30 MW (3 turbines of 10 MW each). The traffic jam began in 2003, the first turbine was put into operation in July 2005, and construction was officially completed at the end of 2005.
During the construction of the dam there was an accident on a small, 10 m high coffer dam ( coffer dam), which was built to divert the river during the construction work. On Thursday, May 27, 2004 , heavy rain on the upper Qingjiang River created a heavy inflow that filled the storage space, washed over the coffer dam and caused it to collapse at 5:49 pm. At the construction site, too, there had been 28 mm of precipitation that morning. 18 people were killed by the tsunami . There were 12 children from a kindergarten as well as the teacher and the bus driver, all of whom drove in a minibus, as well as 4 construction workers.
