What's the use in comparing that dam with that another? They have absolutely nothing in common.
If you wanted to know why it's so dangerous, it still doesn't help comparing the dangerous one with your favorite and safe dam.
Earlier news give more context, the Iraq and US official warning, now the former engineers are even more worried than Iraq and US officials who did make explicit warnings, which certainly means it's really critical:
And the "explanation" is, the decision to build it was from the start political, not guided by the safety concerns:
"The dam, the largest in Iraq, has had structural problems since its construction in the 1980s. The Saddam Hussein regime pressed on with it in the face of warnings from geologists that it was being built on weak, water-soluble rock such as gypsum and anhydrite.
A report by a panel of Iraqi and Swedish geologists and engineers last year described it as “the most dangerous dam in the world”, saying its very construction was a “mystery” in view of the unfavourable geology. Before it was built, the report said, “all the studies expressed a clear concern on the fact that this region suffers from extensive presence of soluble rock formations that might undermine the safety of a high dam of a large reservoir such as Mosul dam.”"
And the safety-increasing project was started even 20 years ago, but the sanctions and the wars were stronger:
"A second structure, the Badush dam, was started 20km downstream, to prevent a catastrophe in the event of the Mosul dam’s failure. But work on Badush halted in the 1990s because of the pressure of sanctions, leaving it only 40% complete."
dude, it sounds like there is nothing that would help the dangerous dam. Nobody thinks that just words are going to help, but learning more about a dams in general (such as the hoover) does illuminate the the issue even if it doesn't help.
du-de viggity, somebody else (yread) here posted, but outside of this thread, don't ask why, that Hoover dam also had to be grouted after it was finished:
Now imagine that there wasn't peace at that time but that people couldn't even get enough food and medicine, and that at the time this should have been finished some 500,000 kids died, like in Iraq:
If you wanted to know why it's so dangerous, it still doesn't help comparing the dangerous one with your favorite and safe dam.
Earlier news give more context, the Iraq and US official warning, now the former engineers are even more worried than Iraq and US officials who did make explicit warnings, which certainly means it's really critical:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/29/iraq-us-issue-w...
And the "explanation" is, the decision to build it was from the start political, not guided by the safety concerns:
"The dam, the largest in Iraq, has had structural problems since its construction in the 1980s. The Saddam Hussein regime pressed on with it in the face of warnings from geologists that it was being built on weak, water-soluble rock such as gypsum and anhydrite.
A report by a panel of Iraqi and Swedish geologists and engineers last year described it as “the most dangerous dam in the world”, saying its very construction was a “mystery” in view of the unfavourable geology. Before it was built, the report said, “all the studies expressed a clear concern on the fact that this region suffers from extensive presence of soluble rock formations that might undermine the safety of a high dam of a large reservoir such as Mosul dam.”"
And the safety-increasing project was started even 20 years ago, but the sanctions and the wars were stronger:
"A second structure, the Badush dam, was started 20km downstream, to prevent a catastrophe in the event of the Mosul dam’s failure. But work on Badush halted in the 1990s because of the pressure of sanctions, leaving it only 40% complete."