RE: Diamir Bhasha Dam – awe-inspiring or awful?

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The paper has published a report on Diamir Bhasha Dam in its issue, dated 31-08-2016.  It reveals a dam built by roller concrete
with a real height of 922 ft. above sea level and 270 ft. above the river level to impound a water reservoir of 7.4 MAF.  Since the water would be stored in narrow gorge 110 KM long it would be located on a fault line in a highly seismic sea.  It has been presented as an awe-inspiring project.  It may well be called an awful project as nowhere in the world a roller concrete dam of higher than 650 ft. height has ever been built. The technical committee majority report had written that “Pakistan needs a facility and not a monster.  We need assured safety of structures and not international records of physical dimensions”. As such we should think twice about building a 16 billion $ monster in a highly seismic area.

Dr. Muhammad Yaqoob Bhatti

 

3 COMMENTS

  1. Kindly note that the height of Bhasha dam above sea level is a little over 12000 feet,
    and the height of the dam above river bed will be almost 900 feet. A dam of this height in an active seismic area will be a disaster waiting to happen

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