Dam Collapses

Families were swept away in a torrent of water and as many as 40 people were feared dead after a dam collapsed in northwest Nigeria, a state-owned radio station said. The dam -- about a mile from the center of Zamfara state's capital, Gusau -- collapsed Saturday after heavy rains. Surveyors were trying to determine whether the downpour or structural neglect was to blame. About 1,500 homes were destroyed in the deluge, a government aid spokesman said.

Rescue workers searched desperately into the early-morning hours today for dozens of missing Indonesians after a dam burst just outside the capital and a wall of mud and water killed more than 60 people as they slept. "My prediction is we still have many people trapped in there, so the death toll will rise," said Rustam Pakaya, chief of the Health Ministry's crisis center. "I think the death toll can reach 100," he said. The Associated Press reported that at least 69 were dead.

The chirping of birds and the whoops of children frolicking in the grassy hollow give the hilltop a sense of serenity now. It was different 40 years ago. There was a gurgling sound, a warning scream and finally a whooshing roar as death and destruction swept down a ridge into a Los Angeles neighborhood. The Baldwin Hills Dam collapsed with the fury of a thousand cloudbursts, sending a 50-foot wall of water down Cloverdale Avenue and slamming into homes and cars on Dec. 14, 1963.

Rescuers used heavy equipment to search for survivors under a torrent of sludge, mud and mining waste that plowed into buildings in northern China, killing at least 56 people, state media reported. The New China News Agency said it was not known how many people were trapped. The People's Daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, said on its website that the missing could number in the hundreds. A preliminary investigation showed that a dam collapse at a mine in Xiangfen County caused Monday's landslide, a top safety official said.

California taxpayers gave hundreds of thousands of dollars last month to Wayne Hall and his son, Dale, 19 years after a flood submerged their butcher shop in 6 feet of water. The settlement resolved a bitter legal battle so prolonged that nearly 500 victims of the disaster died waiting for similar payments.

The dam vanished nearly 70 years ago, but the fury and death that its failure wrought are still haunting. Geological engineer J. David Rogers may have finally unraveled the lingering mystery of one of Southern California's greatest disasters: the collapse of the St. Francis Dam, which killed 450 people on March 12-13, 1928.

A huge gate at Folsom Dam broke open Monday, spilling enough water each second to supply a family of five for a year. The break forced evacuation of boaters, hikers and anglers along the American River, but posed no immediate danger to communities downstream. Dam operators said they may not be able to stop the water roaring out of the broken gate for up to a week, until the water level drops 40 feet to the top of the spillway.

A dam burst in China's remote western Qinghai province, releasing cascades of water that wiped out several villages and killed at least 223 people, officials and local health workers said. Thousands of people were injured and many are missing since the dam broke about 11 p.m. Friday, flooding numerous villages, local television said. It was not immediately known what caused the failure of the dam at the Gouhou reservoir.

The failure of a gate at Folsom Dam is a sign that California's largest water system is starting to crumble because of federal neglect, water customers said. One of eight gates at the 40-year-old dam gave way as it was being raised Monday, and water from the filled reservoir gushed through the opening at 40,000 cubic feet per second. Water continued to pour through the opening Tuesday, and was not expected to stop until about 40% of the reservoir was drained later this week.

A river fed by torrential rains burst a dike and swept into a remote town in southwestern India on Tuesday. Police said that about 500 people are feared dead and thousands of homes have been destroyed. Stormy weather lashed several other parts of India, where at least 59 people were feared killed in floods or house collapses, news reports said.

The top U.S. military commander in Iraq warned Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in May that the country's biggest dam is at risk of collapse, endangering the city of Mosul. But a report to be published today says little progress has been made, largely because of mismanagement of U.S. reconstruction money. The May letter from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, cosigned by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, warns that the dam, just up the Tigris River from the northern city of Mosul, could fail.

Families were swept away in a torrent of water and as many as 40 people were feared dead after a dam collapsed in northwest Nigeria, a state-owned radio station said. The dam -- about a mile from the center of Zamfara state's capital, Gusau -- collapsed Saturday after heavy rains. Surveyors were trying to determine whether the downpour or structural neglect was to blame. About 1,500 homes were destroyed in the deluge, a government aid spokesman said.

The stone retaining wall around a mountaintop reservoir in the Ozarks collapsed before daybreak Wednesday, releasing a 1-billion-gallon torrent of water that swept away at least two homes and several vehicles and critically injured three children, authorities said. The 600-foot-wide breach opened up just after 5 a.m. at a hydroelectric plant run by St.

California taxpayers gave hundreds of thousands of dollars last month to Wayne Hall and his son, Dale, 19 years after a flood submerged their butcher shop in 6 feet of water. The settlement resolved a bitter legal battle so prolonged that nearly 500 victims of the disaster died waiting for similar payments.

The chirping of birds and the whoops of children frolicking in the grassy hollow give the hilltop a sense of serenity now. It was different 40 years ago. There was a gurgling sound, a warning scream and finally a whooshing roar as death and destruction swept down a ridge into a Los Angeles neighborhood. The Baldwin Hills Dam collapsed with the fury of a thousand cloudbursts, sending a 50-foot wall of water down Cloverdale Avenue and slamming into homes and cars on Dec. 14, 1963.

A dam burst under the pressure of a rain-swollen lake, forcing the evacuation of about 40 houses and a rest home. The dam on Hope Mills Lake broke about 10 a.m., said Doc Nunnery, Cumberland County emergency services director. Police officers went to the homes and Happy Valley Retirement Center to direct people to leave. A shelter was set up at a high school, but residents were eventually allowed to return to their homes, said Stacy Lemons, a Cumberland County fire dispatcher.

A dam burst under the pressure of a rain-swollen lake, forcing the evacuation of about 40 houses and a rest home. The dam on Hope Mills Lake broke about 10 a.m., said Doc Nunnery, Cumberland County emergency services director. Police officers went to the homes and Happy Valley Retirement Center to direct people to leave. A shelter was set up at a high school, but residents were eventually allowed to return to their homes, said Stacy Lemons, a Cumberland County fire dispatcher.

After work crews battled the elements for 2 1/2 weeks to keep oil from getting into a sensitive wildlife preserve, pounding surf and high tides ruptured a protective dam and sent oil residue from the Feb. 7 tanker spill into the Huntington Beach Wetlands, officials said. Although the amount of oil that invaded the Talbert Marsh area of the wetlands was in dispute Sunday, it was generally agreed among officials that the marsh could suffer long-term environmental consequences.

A dam collapsed in northern Syria and flooded several villages Tuesday, killing at least two people, residents and officials said. After the Zeyzoun Dam burst, villagers said some areas were submerged under 13 feet of water. But the flood receded quickly, and a few hours later the water level was down to about 4 inches. The dam, built in 1996, burst near Idlib, about 160 miles north of Damascus, the Syrian capital. It is on the Orontes River.

From the coarse grass in what used to be a lush farm valley, it's easy to spot the remnants of a bridge that hasn't carried traffic in more than half a century. Last year the concrete abutments sat under about 40 feet of water in Waterbury Reservoir, not far from one of the most popular recreation spots in the state. Today a stream that long ago passed under the bridge meanders again in its old bed. It took the threat of a dam failure to expose the remains under the 850-acre reservoir.