Malpasset Dam |
| Malpasset Dam was an arch
dam.
It was almost 8 houses high.
It was not even one house wide at the bottom.
It failed not long after it was built in 1959, killing almost 500 people.
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The dam was located in France.
It was built to provide water for drinking and for farms. |
| Cracking was noticed in the Malpasset Dam just a few
weeks before it failed. No one is sure why exactly the dam failed.
Likely, the ground it was built on was not good.
This is a picture of what is left of the dam. It was not rebuilt. |  |
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Maybe this dam could have been saved if
some computer simulations of the cracking were done. |
Click the forward
arrow to learn more about computer simulations of cracking in dams.
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