Absolutely staggering.
On August 17th, near Sayanogorsk in south central Russia, a catastrophic accident took place in the turbine and transformer rooms of the hydroelectric plant of the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam. The exact cause is still under investigation, but what is known so far is that a tremendous amount of water from the Yenisei River flooded the turbine room, causing at least one transformer explosion and extensive damage to all ten turbines, destroying at least three of them. 74 workers are known to have lost their lives in the accident, while one remains missing. Additionally, 40 tons of transformer oil were spilled into the river, killing an estimated 400 tons of trout in two fisheries. Investigators plan to release findings in two months, as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for a nationwide infrastructure inspection. (32 Photos Total)
More pics below the fold:
I picked just three photos from the 32 at the site.
To give you some sense of the size of the dam, here is a full shot with the damaged portion circled.
Memo to Ruskies: You might want to think about locating your high-voltage transformers outside where they can’t be flooded, like we do here in America. BTW, how do you say ‘dumb a$$es” in Russian? Boulder Dam Transformers
Horrific !
Sad that so many were killed.
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I’m wondering why the amount of oil that spilled into the river was mentioned in weight and not volume.
How many gallons is 40 tons ?
And what a mess in that river, plus the fisheries gone.
Ewwwwwwww
Much devastation because, as John Cooper pointed out, logic was a foreign concept re: where the transformers were.
Obviously more Bush/Cheney mischief…………
Damn!
Well, someone had to say it…
That’s odd. A damn mysteriously released a flood of water in North Korea down into South Korea too.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/09/116_51624.html
Moscow, we have a problem ……
(Yeah, I know, weak, but again, SOMEONE had to say it.)
Splash-down!
I work for a drilling company. Apparently the Russans leased a rig and then copied it a few years back. they did the rebuild using their steel, which wasn’t as high quality, so they had to overbuild to make up for the weaker steel. Apparently, it was so heavy, it couldn’t hold any pipe before becoming, um, non-boyant (is that the PC term?)