Mosul Dam, which is the largest of Iraq and the fourth largest in the Middle East, could burst endangering 1.5 million Iraqis.
The Baghdad government warned the population living on the banks of the Tigris to the possibility of having to evacuate their homes. Eight cities will be affected, including the capital.
The US embassy in Baghdad issued a notice to all its citizens who are in risk areas to abandon them, saying not known exactly when the disaster could occur. According to the embassy, "between 500,000 and 1.47 million Iraqis live along the Tigris in high-risk areas are unlikely to survive unless they are evacuated."
The biggest problem is that many of these areas are under control of the Islamic state or are in dispute ...
As for the capital Baghdad, the lives of its 6 million people would be seriously affected. The dam is located 40 kilometers north of Mosul. If fractured, the city would be flooded by a wave of up to 21 meters in less than four hours, and between 24 and 72 hours the Tigris would overflow its south-north-of step by Shirqat, Baiji, Tikrit, Samarra, Balad, Dujail and finally Baghdad after three or four days. Between Baghdad and Mosul, the second city of the country, there are about 400 kilometers.
The Iraqi government has been insisting that the danger is minimal ( "One chance in a thousand"), recalling that there had been warned of the risk in 2005, 2006 and 2007. But now announced contingency plans. The office of Prime Minister Haider Abadi, issued a statement saying that "the collapse of the dam is highly unlikely, especially with technical and administrative precautions taken by the authorities, but serious consequences if it did justify the alarm." So "we have launched a package of recommendations to avoid potential risk, God forbid, that should be considered by everyone".
Such notices indicate that the emergency works to repair the dam late.
The Mosul dam was opened in 1986 and needs constant maintenance due to structural failures in its foundations. Known as the "Saddam Dam" she was built in four years by an Italian-German consortium led by Hochtief construction A.G., of what was then West Germany.
A study last year by Swedish geologists and Iraqi engineers and considered it "a mystery" that were decided to build "the most dangerous dam in the world" on a plot of soluble rocks.