Reuters AlertNet Full site
Homepage | Newsdesk | NGO Latest | Crisis briefings | Country profiles | MediaWatch | Jobs | Alerting | Login

NEWSDESK

Australia dam was inspected days before it burst
24 Nov 2008 03:24:25 GMT
 Source: Reuters
CANBERRA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - An inflatable dam which burst, killing a young girl, after a week of heavy rain in Australia's Queensland state passed safety tests only days before, authorities and the dam's operator said on Monday.

The 4-year-old girl was swept to her death on Sunday when the bladder ruptured, releasing enough water to fill 6,000 Olympic-sized pools.

The dam was being used to increase the capacity of the storm-swollen Bedford Weir, near Blackwater in central Queensland.

"The weir was operating very well. There were no signs of anything leading up to the failure," Peter Boettcher, the chief executive of weir operator Sunwater, told state radio.

The girl had been swimming with her mother and two other adults near the base of the weir when the bladder failed. All three adults were swept away but survived.

The Blackwater area had been inundated after a week of heavy rains and cyclonic storms which also battered the state capital Brisbane, 800 km (500 miles) to the southeast.

"This is just just a terrible ending for what has been a horrible week," acting police inspector David Stein said. (Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Paul Tait)


AlertNet news is provided by
Email this article       Send comments

Topics

•  Water

MORE >>

Emergencies

•  Tropical storm Three

MORE >>

NGO latest

•  Aid agencies launch joint appeal to ease Congo humanitarian crisis
DEC - UK

•  Climate change threatens to reverse Viet Nam success by dragging millions back into poverty
Oxfam GB - UK

•  The DEC launches appeal for the Democratic Republic of Congo
Red Cross - UK

•  Save Water after the Tsunami in Sri Lanka
Malteser International - Germany

•  The good taste of clean water - New latrines, water filters and mosquito nets for the families in Sittwe/western Myanmar
Malteser International - Germany

MORE >>

Latest news

•  Australia dam was inspected days before it burst

•  Surviving whales tracked by satellite in Australia

•  Astronauts work on space station water recycler

•  Flash floods as Australian dam bursts-report

•  SCENARIOS-What's in store for politically riven Thailand?

MORE >>

AlertNet news is provided by

Background information

Briefings
Tropical storm Three - [Who works where]

Topics
Water
Facts & figures
Australia

Related articles

Breaking stories
 Australia dam was inspected days before it burst (1 minute ago)

Surviving whales tracked by satellite in Australia (1 minute ago)

AlertNet insight
 Where's the global food crisis taking us? (1 minute ago)

Aid agency news feed
 Aid agencies launch joint appeal to ease Congo humanitarian crisis (1 minute ago)

Blogs
 CLIMATE CHANGE BLOG: Does poverty equal vulnerability? (1 minute ago)

Maps
 Tropical storm Anika (1 minute ago)


Del.icio.us Del.icio.us  |   Digg Digg  |   NewsVine NewsVine  |   Reddit Reddit   
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-11-23T182613Z_01_XNN010_RTRIDSP_2_EGYPT_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/XNN010.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-11-23T181110Z_01_XNN011_RTRIDSP_2_EGYPT_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/XNN011.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-11-23T134058Z_01_PEK09_RTRIDSP_2_CHINA_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/PEK09.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-11-23T103051Z_01_PEK12_RTRIDSP_2_CHINA_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/PEK12.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-11-23T102805Z_01_PEK13_RTRIDSP_2_CHINA_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/PEK13.htm

A fisherman wears a mask, which he says protects his face from water pollution, in Lake Manzala, near Port Said, north Nile Delta, about 300km (186 miles) north of Cairo, November ...


More pictures | Galleries
Disclaimers |  Copyright |  Privacy |  Contact Us |  Feedback |  About Us |  RSS XML

Last updated:Mon Nov 24 03:25:42 2008