Worse than ISIS – the Mosul Dam

As the world focuses on Aleppo roughly 367 miles East looms an impending crisis, the collapse of the Mosul Dam. The Mosul Dam is a large piece of infrastructure which regulates the Tigris River and generates power to the region. The location of the Dam is a top of rapidly eroding rock. For years, engineers have warned of the imminent collapse of the Dam which would create a massive flood which would kill an estimated 1.5 million people.

According to scientists, environmentalists, and engineers alike, the collapse of the Mosul Dam will be worse than a nuclear bomb. As Iraqi forces continue to fight ISIS to take back Mosul, the urgency to repair the Mosul Dam is more important than ever. While Iraqi forces continue to fight ISIS and take back Mosul the biggest threat Iraqis are faced with has nothing to do with ISIS, but rather the Mosul Dam and the ground it was built on.

The Mosul Dam was completed in 1984 and is structurally sound, the problem lies with the foundation in which it was built. To put it bluntly, and in the words of Azzam Alwash an Iraqi-American civil engineer, “it’s just in the wrong place.” The foundation of the Mosul Dam was built on Gypsum, soluble rock which dissolves in water, and without continuous maintenance the foundation will wash away.

Currently, the Mosul Dam holds back 11 trillion liters of water from Mosul, and should the Dam collapse it would engulf Mosul and a string of cities all the way to Baghdad in a massive tidal wave of 45 feet. The worse part is, there is no way to predict if or when the Mosul Dam will breach, it is like a nuclear bomb with an unpredictable fuse.

In an attempt to correct the problem, Italian company TREVI is carrying out maintenance works on the dam as well as consolidating foundations as part of a $300m contract funded by the World Bank. However, the outlook for the Mosul Dam in avoiding a total collapse is bleak at best. Scientists have weighed in and said the maintenance work being done is only merely delaying the inevitable.

The warnings about Mosul Dam’s frail state coupled with the continued battle between Iraqi forces and ISIS has a lot of Iraqis worried. Especially if ISIS decides to take aim at the Mosul Dam and blow it up or at the very least use it to blackmail the government in Baghdad into submission and forcing them to submit to their demands.

When it comes to using terror to wage war, ISIS makes Al Qaeda look like a JV basketball team, but the probability of ISIS actually blowing up the Mosul Dam does not necessarily align with their MO. ISIS would only use the Mosul Dam as their trump card should they find themselves with their backs against the wall.

In the meantime, TREVI engineers are optimistic in their ability to fix the Dam before it collapses. Between the political instability of the region and the ongoing war against ISIS to take back Mosul, TREVI is no doubt in a race against the clock.