*** Youtube/Video thread ***

This channel does short documentaries on disasters and does them very well. Also, thank goodness, they don't use the nuisance neighbour simulator that's so fashionable nowadays. There isn't any irrelevant music played constantly over the video to try to simulate having a nuisance neighbour who plays their choice of music loudly enough to force you to listen to it. This one is on yet another dam failure. This failure was slightly different to most in that the dam failed very early, with failure starting before the reservoir was even filled. The underlying cause was completion bias, a variant of the sunk cost fallacy. As soon as the site was chosen there were objections but they were overruled because money had been spent on surveying. During construction, more objections were raised as construction showed that the earlier objections were correct. They were ignored because a lot of money had been spent by that time and everything was already planned. Must complete the project! Unsurprisingly, the outcome cost far more money (~US$2B) than halting the project would have done and it killed people. 11 dead. Would have been far worse if the person inspecting the failing dam hadn't made a stand and told the local authorities that full on evacuation order was required, early enough for an evacuation to be possible.



There's an interesting comment in the comment section. Someone is claiming to have been told by someone working in the electricity generating industry that if hydroelectric power stations were held to the same level of safety standards as nuclear power stations then a series of at least 10 dams further downstream would be required to maintain safety if the first dam failed. Sounds plausible to me. Maybe exaggerated a bit (maybe it would only require 5 dams), but sound. Hydroelectric (and dams in general) is held to far lower safety standards than nuclear and a lot of people have died as a result.
 
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