Italialaiset korjaamaan Mosulin patoa

Work to stabilize Iraq’s endangered 113-m-tall Mosul dam on the Tigris River will require unprecedented engineering effort, warns a Swedish-based soil-mechanic professor with extensive knowledge of the troubled site. Faced with warnings of an imminent, catastrophic collapse of the earthfill structure causing widespread devastation, the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources on March 2 signed up Italy’s Trevi Group to stem leaks under the dam and repair a bottom outlet floodgate.

Work will involve “an intense level of drilling activities and injection of cement mixtures” to consolidate the foundations, according to Trevi. The $260-million contract calls for the construction of a 333-m-deep cut-off wall built through the crest of the 3.4-km-long earthfill dam, according to Nadhir Al-Ansari. “Nobody has tried this before” at such a scale, he says.

Germany’s Hochtief A.G., Essen, led a consortium including, what was then, Impregilo S.p.A., Milan, Italy, to built the 113-m-tall, 3.4-km-long dam between 1981 and 1986. [enr]

Padon sähkövoimalaitoksen kapasiteetti/teho on peräti 1,052 MW (Imatra 192 MW), ja vuosituotanto 3.42 TWh.