← Back to the front page

History’s Most Catastrophic Man-made Errors

Khalid Elhassan December 9, 2020 34 min

Wanggongchang Explosion - Beijing — The Wanggongchang Explosion devastated Beijing. Pintrest

31. Communications Failures Led to Disaster

The Banqiao Dam disaster could have been averted if not for incompetence and poor communications. On August 6^th, 1975, with water levels rising in its reservoir because of Typhoon Nina, Banqiao’s officials requested authority to open the dam to relieve the pressure. They were turned down because of ongoing flooding downstream. The request was finally accepted the following day, the 7^th, but the telegram failed to reach Banqiao.

In the early hours of August 8^th, the water crested a foot above the dam’s wave protection wall, and it collapsed. It was one of 62 dams that collapsed because of Typhoon Nina, releasing nearly 16 billion cubic meters of water. The result was a wave 6.2 miles wide and 10 – 23 feet high, that rushed downstream at 31 miles an hour. It left a swath of devastation 9.3 miles wide and 34 miles long.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.