Hirakud Dam

Tsunami 1980

The Hirakud Dam is the largest dam in India, measured at the water surface, and an artificial lake near the town of Hirakud. It lies on the river Mahanadi in Sambalpur district in the state of Odisha approximately 16 km north of the city of Sambalpur. The dam is 1980 made ​​famous by a catastrophic flood.

Reservoir

The Hirakud Dam is used for irrigation, flood control and power generation. He summed originally 8.1 billion cubic meters of water. He silted however, so that with a final measurement in 1988 only 7.189 billion m³ were found. The shore length of 640 km. With an area of 746 km ², the reservoir was at its completion, the largest artificial lake in Asia, but was in 1967 overhauled in 1960 by the Soviet Buchtarma Reservoir and the Bratsk Reservoir.

The planning of the dam Sir M. Visvesvarayya was involved.

Shut-off

The shut-off is a combination of a gravity dam made ​​of concrete and masonry as well as a dam from Erdschüttmaterial. The building was constructed in 1957, is 59 m high and 4800 m long. On both sides there are long connecting dikes, the left is 9337 m long ( in five sections ) and the right 10,759 m ( in one piece). At the time of completion of the dam with a total length (including connection dikes ) 25 km the longest dam in the world, but this record has since been broken was, from Yacyretá in Argentina.

The disaster

In September 1980, it was through this dam for a flood disaster with a few hundred to about 1,000 dead. Although there was no spill, but due to the flood emergency had to be relieved the dam by the shutters were opened. The panic emergency relief was required because the dam would otherwise have been over flowing and a much greater damage would have occurred by a failure of the dam.