A wall of water falling on land and flowing forwards in a quick and powerful mass of streams, eroding the ground and demolishing all structures it meets on its way, leaving nothing behind. It could’ve been a depiction of a tsunami, but it’s a human-made cataclysm: a dam failure. The earliest known disaster of this kind happened almost 1,500 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula, in the ancient kingdom of Saba. Today, a new dam stands in place of the historical one, built in 1980 and functioning well.

A dam can be natural too, though, and when such a thing bursts, nothing good comes of it either. In Sweden, there once was a meltwater lake formed because of glacial debris blocking the course of a river. In 1794, locals received permission to dig a bypass canal to change the course of the river and safely transport logs through it. The work was finished despite many troubles, and the water began to flow... So what happens when dams fail? And what are the biggest dam failures of all time?

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