On-Demand Webinar: The 1979 Machhu Dam Disaster: Social Origins and Social Consequences
From ASDSO Dam Safety Toolbox
Association of State Dam Safety Officials, 2020
In this webinar, Utpal Sandesara and Tom Wooten will discuss their book, No One Had a Tongue to Speak: The Untold Story of One of History’s Deadliest Floods. The course will cover the social causes and social consequences of the 1979 failure of the Machhu Dam-II in Gujarat, India. The flood wiped out dozens of villages and the industrial city of Morbi, killing at least 5,000 people. The course will cover the technical causes of the dam failure, the managerial problems that allowed design flaws to go unchecked, and the many ways the flood upended lives in the Machhu River Valley.
Key Take-aways:
- Dam collapses can have terrible social consequences.
- Dam collapses also have social causes: there is no such thing as a “natural” disaster.
- This disaster, like most disasters, emerged not from one mistake but from a cascade of them.
- Covering up causes of engineering disasters does the profession and the public a disservice.
- The case shows how crucial it is to take dams seriously: ASDSO members do vital work.
Access Training Here
Speaker(s): Tom Wooten
Revision ID: 2317
Revision Date: 08/19/2022