Dam break on the Piesberg

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The dam break on the Piesberg on October 20, 1957 was the break of a mud pond dam on the Piesberg . The mud from the mud pond in the Pye district of Osnabrück spilled into the neighboring settlement and claimed a human life.

Starting position

In the then still independent municipality of Pye was the mud pond of the washing and crushing plant of the quarry on Piesberg. This was a few meters above the settlement below, which was later devastated by the dam breach. The sludge pond was created to absorb the sludge from washing the sandstone, to dry it and to feed the water back into the process. Since 1915 the dam has been gradually increased to 20 meters in order to increase the storage capacity. After a long period of rain in the previous weeks and months of 1957, the mud pond was very full and the dam that held it was softened, which later led to the dam breaking.

Course of events

At 7:40 a.m. on Sunday, October 20, 1957, the dam finally gave way for a length of 30 meters without warning. The mud emerging from the broken dam spilled into the settlement around Münsterberger Strasse and Bergmannsweg 50 meters below and caused great damage here. This mud roller was 100 meters wide and only stopped after 500 meters. A house on Lechtinger Strasse was completely torn away by the mass of mud, and the rubble was distributed down the valley into the other gardens. Here a 55-year-old woman was caught by the mudslide and buried under the rubble of the house. Since there were many people in the early mass, many residents were not at home, so there were no further victims to complain about. The mud poured over an area of ​​5 hectares in several bursts. In addition to the completely destroyed house on Lechtinger Strasse, two houses were so badly damaged that they later had to be demolished. 20 other houses were damaged when the dam broke.

Rescue and clean-up work

In addition to the fire departments of the city and the district, the THW Osnabrück and the DRK were also involved in the search and clearance work . The Osnabrück Garrison of the British Armed Forces and the Bundeswehr took part in the search, rescue and rescue work. A hundred police from Hanover were called in to cordon off the area.

The THW had to remove a track of the Piesberger Feldbahn hanging over the dam breach and felled over 60 trees in order to ensure that the assistants could work safely. British military backhoes and crawlers work their way through the mud to the affected homes. 15 injured people were rescued from the affected houses by the associations deployed. When searching for people, a white Spitz named Bobby was rescued after a few hours, which made him a media star. Since the mud dried very quickly and became very hard, the clean-up work by the residents dragged on for weeks and months.

Todays situation

Settling basins of the Piesberg quarry near the Pye district still exist today. Due to the advanced rock extraction, however, these are several meters deeper than in the 1950s. Since less water is required for modern work processes, they also have a significantly lower volume. The boundary in the direction of the residential area is not a heaped dam, but a wooded ridge up to 40 meters high and at least 100 meters wide. A catastrophe like 1957 could therefore not be repeated.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Dam breach with serious consequences (pdf). In: Das Technische Hilfswerk December 1957 edition. Technische Hilfswerk, December 1957, accessed on April 10, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Joachim Dierks: On October 20, 1957, a mudslide made hundreds homeless. In: noz.de. Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung , October 16, 2012, accessed on April 10, 2020 .
  3. ↑ The founding years . In: thw-osnabrueck.de. Technical relief organization Osnabrück, accessed on April 10, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Broken dam near Osnabrück - houses badly damaged . In: Ibbenbürener Volkszeitung . October 21, 1957, p. 1 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 19 ′ 13.2 ″  N , 8 ° 0 ′ 12.4 ″  E