1 00:00:00,099 --> 00:00:04,960 This is Mosul, Iraq: it’s Iraq’s second-ranked city by population, and first-ranked city 2 00:00:04,960 --> 00:00:07,169 by which city sounds the most like T-Mobile. 3 00:00:07,169 --> 00:00:08,940 And this is the Mosul Dam. 4 00:00:08,940 --> 00:00:12,440 Right now, it provides hydroelectric power and flood control for the city below, but 5 00:00:12,440 --> 00:00:15,750 over the last few decades, analysts have been considering what would happen if it stopped 6 00:00:15,750 --> 00:00:19,880 doing either of those things and instead catastrophically failed and flooded the entire region. 7 00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:24,400 Believe it or not, it turns out a catastrophic failure would be quite bad: in fact, the damage 8 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:26,180 would be greater than a nuclear bomb. 9 00:00:26,180 --> 00:00:30,880 Oh, and even worse, the dam experts are pretty damn sure it’s gonna happen. 10 00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:35,320 And oh again, even worse than that, the government refuses to listen to a damn thing the experts 11 00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:36,320 have to say. 12 00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:37,320 But how did this happen? 13 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:39,770 Well, thanks to a whole bunch of -isms. 14 00:00:39,770 --> 00:00:44,140 Authoritarianism, for one, and good ole American interventionism, for another. 15 00:00:44,140 --> 00:00:48,210 The thing is, in a country with sand-heavy, low-lying foundations, there’s really no 16 00:00:48,210 --> 00:00:52,140 good place to build something that needs a solid foundation to work—like making a Marvel 17 00:00:52,140 --> 00:00:53,879 film without a Chris. 18 00:00:53,879 --> 00:00:57,320 Ultimately, Saddam Hussein—Iraq’s president at the time, who was almost as bad at dam 19 00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:01,120 location selection as he was at not getting executed—went ahead with a location due 20 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:05,470 north of the city of Mosul on the Tigris River, as a dam there could ensure Iraq had the lion’s 21 00:01:05,470 --> 00:01:08,979 share of water from the Tigris —which would offset how much water Iraq’s farmers had 22 00:01:08,979 --> 00:01:12,610 lost from Turkey, who had just built a bunch of dams along the Euphrates upstream, cutting 23 00:01:12,610 --> 00:01:16,590 off all the Iraqi farmers downstream, who had relied on it for thousands of years. 24 00:01:16,590 --> 00:01:20,440 So, building their own dam on the Tigris would accomplish several goals, as it would create 25 00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:23,680 a consistent water supply, balance out the river’s annual flood and drought cycles, 26 00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:25,720 and most importantly, flip the bird to Turkey. 27 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:30,110 As it turns out, building a gigantic dam in the middle of the desert is pretty damn hard, 28 00:01:30,110 --> 00:01:35,180 requiring billions of dollars, military intervention, and, most importantly, blind ignorance. 29 00:01:35,180 --> 00:01:38,680 Engineers warned Hussein that the Mosul region didn’t feature any nice, solid rock to build 30 00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:42,540 a dam, and the most prevalent mineral layer was gypsum—a type of mineral that, ironically 31 00:01:42,540 --> 00:01:44,710 enough, dissolves in water. 32 00:01:44,710 --> 00:01:48,350 Building a dam in gypsum is kind of like planting your cantaloupe tree outside the house of 33 00:01:48,350 --> 00:01:50,010 Johnny the Cantaloupe Smasher. 34 00:01:50,010 --> 00:01:53,850 They warned it would take extensive grouting, or filling in the riverbanks with a less-permeable 35 00:01:53,850 --> 00:01:58,030 rock, and lining the entire reservoir basin with more solid rock, to build the dam. 36 00:01:58,030 --> 00:02:02,289 But not to be deterred by things like “science” and “facts” and “catastrophic danger,” 37 00:02:02,289 --> 00:02:06,759 Hussein ordered the dam’s construction in 1981, a year after declaring war on Iran, 38 00:02:06,759 --> 00:02:09,920 which put pressure on its engineers and workers to finish building it, fast. 39 00:02:09,920 --> 00:02:15,260 In the end, only 150 meters, or nearly 500 feet, of cement directly underneath the dam, 40 00:02:15,260 --> 00:02:20,120 and 25 meters, or 82 feet, of cement between the dam and the gypsum layers, was put in, 41 00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:24,410 despite the concerns of Hochtief Aktiengesellschaft, the seemingly intentionally hard to pronounce 42 00:02:24,410 --> 00:02:26,790 German-Italian company hired to build the dam. 43 00:02:26,790 --> 00:02:30,040 Though the engineers had warned of the dangers inherent to building a dam there for decades 44 00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:34,459 previously, they didn’t predict how bad, and how quickly, there would be dam problems. 45 00:02:34,459 --> 00:02:39,239 Mere months after completion, small cesspools began to accumulate on riverbanks downstream 46 00:02:39,239 --> 00:02:41,680 and sinkholes threatened the dam’s structural integrity. 47 00:02:41,680 --> 00:02:45,540 The dam’s gypsum foundation resulted in increased “seepage”, which meant water 48 00:02:45,540 --> 00:02:49,629 continually leaked through it, which I should point out, is the exact opposite of a dam’s 49 00:02:49,629 --> 00:02:50,629 whole point. 50 00:02:50,629 --> 00:02:55,019 With eleven billion cubic meters, or forty trillion cubic feet of water being held back, 51 00:02:55,019 --> 00:02:59,330 having a soluble rock layer becomes less of an occupational hazard and more of an apocalyptic 52 00:02:59,330 --> 00:03:00,849 event waiting to happen. 53 00:03:00,849 --> 00:03:04,220 The government did order more grouting of the dam to pour cement and make the dam less 54 00:03:04,220 --> 00:03:08,190 likely to crack, but continues to deflect responsibility for building it, instead taking 55 00:03:08,190 --> 00:03:11,129 a page right out of the American playbook and blaming everyone else. 56 00:03:11,129 --> 00:03:14,780 Although a dam downriver near the town of Badush was partially constructed to help mitigate 57 00:03:14,780 --> 00:03:18,680 a flood from Mosul Dam, Hussein had to use its construction materials after invading 58 00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:22,300 Kuwait, and a few years later, the United States decided to simplify things for everyone 59 00:03:22,300 --> 00:03:24,040 by bombing that dam into oblivion. 60 00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:28,090 But, of course, there’s a totally awesome and sustainable and not terrifying way they’re 61 00:03:28,090 --> 00:03:31,570 keeping the dam going: a crew of maintenance workers who pour liquid cement into the dam 62 00:03:31,570 --> 00:03:35,819 24/7, 365 days a year, to keep the rock from washing away—seriously. 63 00:03:35,819 --> 00:03:39,689 As you can see in this simulation made by The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, 64 00:03:39,689 --> 00:03:43,780 seemingly rendered with a heavily modded version of Sims 6: if, or more accurately, when the 65 00:03:43,780 --> 00:03:47,830 dam breaks, the city of Mosul could be underwater in three to four hours, creating 100 foot—or 66 00:03:47,830 --> 00:03:52,790 30 meter—waves that would wipe out anything in its path for over 100 miles, or 160 kilometers. 67 00:03:52,790 --> 00:03:56,379 Since most of Iraq’s cities are along the Tigris, it would impact most of the country’s 68 00:03:56,379 --> 00:03:59,890 population, and in less than a week, would eventually reach the country’s largest city, 69 00:03:59,890 --> 00:04:00,890 Baghdad. 70 00:04:00,890 --> 00:04:04,540 Since its cities would be underwater, Iraq couldn’t mobilize medical or emergency services 71 00:04:04,540 --> 00:04:05,540 anywhere. 72 00:04:05,540 --> 00:04:08,930 There’s no telling how many people could die, though conservative estimates range from 73 00:04:08,930 --> 00:04:11,489 the low millions to the tens of millions. 74 00:04:11,489 --> 00:04:15,349 Despite harsh warning from the US Army Corps of Engineers and the United Nations, Iraq 75 00:04:15,349 --> 00:04:19,410 has done little to prevent a national disaster, with officials declaring as recently as 2015 76 00:04:19,410 --> 00:04:22,910 that the dam is fine, there’s nothing wrong with it, and actually, the rest of the world 77 00:04:22,910 --> 00:04:24,630 needs to stop harshing their mellow vibe. 78 00:04:24,630 --> 00:04:29,139 The good news is, there are several solutions to help prevent Mosul Dam’s collapse. 79 00:04:29,139 --> 00:04:34,020 The bad news is, they either require spending billions of dollars or being nice to Turkey—two 80 00:04:34,020 --> 00:04:35,979 things that Iraq isn’t very keen on. 81 00:04:35,979 --> 00:04:39,730 Iraq could design a better retaining dam to prevent any more seepage, which would cost 82 00:04:39,730 --> 00:04:43,360 billions; or it could drain the dam and instead partner with Turkey to build a larger dam 83 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:46,759 in the Taurus Mountain—located far away from any population centers. 84 00:04:46,759 --> 00:04:50,710 Unfortunately, most of Iraq’s populace distrusts diplomacy and doesn’t want the government 85 00:04:50,710 --> 00:04:55,070 to spend billions to fix a problem that many think is an American-bred conspiracy, a dangerous 86 00:04:55,070 --> 00:04:58,720 train of thought that could persist until the dam actually breaks. 87 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:02,100 But surely something will be done: I mean, when has humanity ever put off preventing 88 00:05:02,100 --> 00:05:06,070 a potentially catastrophic disaster until it was too late? 89 00:05:06,070 --> 00:05:09,449 And whether you’ve revolutionized engineering or designed an ingenious diplomatic solution 90 00:05:09,449 --> 00:05:13,250 to prevent the world’s most dangerous dam from collapsing, you probably want a professional 91 00:05:13,250 --> 00:05:15,009 website to share your insight. 92 00:05:15,009 --> 00:05:18,720 The good news is, it’s super easy to get your own domain and fancy email address through 93 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:23,580 Hover, which is great for any idea, dam-related or 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