Not the future
A dam in Norway has partly collapsed as the country battles record high river levels, flooding and landslides after a fatal storm.
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All main roads between Oslo and Trondheim were closed on Wednesday.
Pål Erik Teigen, chief of staff at Innlandet police district, said his force had been monitoring the Braskereidfoss dam and working with power plant owner, Hafslund Eco. “On the south-west side the water is starting to go through … it’s going slowly. This is the best thing now,” he told the Guardian.
They had been considering staging a controlled explosion but once the water started coming through the side, they decided the best solution was to leave it.
“It’s a very heavy situation we have in this part of Norway in the last days because of the rain. If I made a training exercise for the police I wouldn’t in my wildest dreams think of this problem in our district, he said.
“We have many landslides all over, we have homes being taken, evacuated a lot of people, all the roads are closed and all the rivers are overflowing.”
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The government hydrology institute, NVE, said parts of eastern and central Norway were still on red alert, with many rivers at record levels. “In a lot of rivers and lakes the level is still increasing,” said hydrologist Tuomo Saloranta.
The Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, who visited affected areas, said a huge challenge lay ahead. “When the rain stops, another challenge begins: the water needs to get out,” he said.
Here we go.
We have certainly seen an uptick in extreme weather events in recent years, with land slides and rivers finding new ways through peoples’ houses – but they have mostly been much more local. This one is affecting a much larger area and a great many more people. It’s the sort of thing we thought only happened in far away places!
The dam break is no big deal, safety-wise. It’s a really low dam but on a big river, and it only caused a temporary surge downstream. I didn’t get the full sequence of events, but apparently the turbines at the local power station shut down due to some network problem. When that happens, the flood gates are supposed to open automatically to handle the water that usually passes through the turbines, but that failed, with the eventual consequence of the dam failing. Maybe Bjarte has some inside info. Or maybe not, if he’s working for a competitor.