{"id":16865,"date":"2015-11-17T08:17:06","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T08:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=16865"},"modified":"2015-11-17T08:17:06","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T08:17:06","slug":"bento-rodrigues-dam-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/11\/17\/bento-rodrigues-dam-failures\/","title":{"rendered":"High resolution imagery of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures"},"content":{"rendered":"
High resolution imagery of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures<\/h5>\n

Thanks to the many people who have been providing comments on my posts about the Bento Rodrigues dam failures<\/a> (see posts here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>).\u00a0 We have been frustrated by the lack of high resolution images, either satellite or aerial photograph, of the failure site.\u00a0 However, overnight Caner Zanbak tracked down<\/a> a site with SPOT 6\/7 imagery of the site, provided by Airbus Defence and Space<\/a>.\u00a0 For the first time we can see properly what happened.\u00a0 This is an overview of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures:-<\/p>\n

\"Rodrigues<\/a>

SPOT 6\/7 image of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures via Airbus Defence and Space<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

For comparison this is the Google Earth image of the same location, taken in 2013:<\/p>\n

\"Bento<\/a>

Google Earth image of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

This is a zoomed in image of the failed tailings pond and the Fundao Dam site:<\/p>\n

\"Bento<\/a>

SPOT 6\/7 imagery of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures via Airbus Defence and Space<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

This is Google Earth imagery of the same site from 2013.\u00a0 I have annotated the image:<\/p>\n

\"Bento<\/a>

Google Earth imagery of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures from 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

The Fundao Dam, which I have marked A, has filed completely.\u00a0 Indeed there is hardly a trace remaining of the original structure.\u00a0 But note also the near-total removal of the levees marked B, C and D on the image above.\u00a0 This begs the question as to the collapse sequence – did for example, collapse of levee B trigger the failure of Fundao Dam?\u00a0 My sense is that it remains most likely that the Fundao Dam itself failed first, and that the loss of support from the other levees then triggered their subsequent collapse.\u00a0 I cannot see how a collapse of levee B would have triggered collapse of levee C for example, unless this caused a loss of support.\u00a0 However, others will know more about such things than me, and I would welcome comments and observations.<\/p>\n

Downstream the debris reached and then overwhelmed the Santarem dam.\u00a0 This SPOT 6\/7 image shows the site:<\/p>\n

\"Bento<\/a>

SPOT 6\/7 image of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures via Airbus Defence and Space<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

This is the 2013 Google Earth image in comparison, with the dam annotated with letter E:<\/p>\n

\"Bento<\/a>

Google Earth image of the site of the Bento Rodrigues dam from 2013 failures<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

Whilst the Santarem dam was undoubtedly overwhelmed and severely damaged, much of the structure appears to be intact – indeed the original spillway is still visible.\u00a0 This structure is now retaining a large volume of tailings, so ensuring that it remains intact must be a priority.<\/p>\n

At the moment this event looks like a catastrophic, near-complete failure of the Fundao Dam, followed by failures of the other levees in the tailings ponds.\u00a0 A key question remains as to what caused and triggered this catastrophic failure,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Airbus Defence and Space have released high resolution SPOT 6\/7 satellite imagery of the Bento Rodrigues dam failures in Brazil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":16866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[102,71,469,122,1029],"class_list":["post-16865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","tag-brazil","tag-dam","tag-featured","tag-south-america","tag-talings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}