Skelmorlie Dam
The Skelmorlie Dam was the lower dam of two neighboring reservoirs at Skelmorlie in North Ayrshire , Scotland . It broke on April 18, 1925 and caused a tidal wave in which five people lost their lives.
Dam
The reservoir was the main water supply to the village of Skelmorlie and owned by the Eglinton Estate. The dam was built in 1861 by a wandering contractor named Navvy Young and his mixed bag of workers. The dam had received little maintenance since it was built and had long been a cause for concern.
Dam break
The dam had been routinely inspected the evening before and also on the morning of the day of the accident at 8:30 a.m. There were nothing special, but the forester responsible for the dam, Robert Donaldson, discovered that the overflow pipe, which was 18 inches in diameter, was only three inches above the water level.
On April 18th, it rained heavily and it was stormy. Strong winds swept across the lake from the north and northeast. The water splashed over the top of the dam onto the embankment . The streets in the village were already flooded by the heavy rain. The dam suddenly burst and several million gallons (several thousand cubic meters) of water rushed through the center of the village. The tidal wave lasted 10 minutes, after which many houses, streets and gardens were destroyed and five people, four of them children, drowned.
The structure was not rebuilt. The remains can still be seen today.
causes
From the information it can be concluded that the capacity of the basin overflow (the flood relief ) was not up to the flood and that overflowing water washed away the dam.
Others
In the same year another dam accident happened in Great Britain: Eigiau and Coedty .