Kantale dam
Coordinates: 8 ° 21 ′ 41 ″ N , 80 ° 58 ′ 44 ″ E
The dam of the Kantale Dam (Kantalai Dam) near Trincomalee in eastern Sri Lanka broke on April 20, 1986. The tsunami flooded dozen of villages; there were up to 178 deaths.
dam
The dam , an earth or stone embankment dam on a rock foundation 15 or 27 m high, is located 288 km northeast of the capital Colombo . It was built in 614 by King Agbo II and restored in 1869 and 1952. It was 2500 m long and the storage space was 135 million m³. The dam was used by agriculture for irrigation .
catastrophe
On the morning of April 20, 1986, the dam broke near the overflow on the left slope, 50 m from a construction site where an inlet for a pump for the water supply was being built and sheet piling was being rammed as a result. In addition to these vibrations, there was heavy construction site traffic from heavy 30-ton trucks over the dam. It is believed that these causes led to water seepage (piping). Another cause was probably that the dam foundation was drained for the construction work, which may have led to strong seepage currents.
Other sources say the dam was sabotaged by Tamil terrorists.
The number of fatalities is given completely differently with 14 dead and 25 missing, 30, 68, 82, 100, 127 or 178 dead, the number of homeless with 9500 to 18,000. 200 to 400 houses were destroyed and 450 houses damaged. Wells have been polluted, diseases have broken out, and agricultural land has been destroyed.
See also
Web links
- Fatigue testing dams
- Kantale dam in danger
- Kantale dam in danger ( Memento from August 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Classification of reported failures ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Kantale Tank Dam Breached in 1986-04-20
- The leak that turned into a flood
literature
- Kantalai failure leaves 18,000 homeless , Water Power and Dam Construction, May 1986