Barometer | 8 August 2019

Dams, lives and statistics

The town of Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire, was evacuated after heavy rainfall caused the partial collapse of a reservoir slipway. No one has been killed in a dam collapse in Britain since 1925, but the worst incidents up to that date were:

— Dale Dyke, Sheffield, 1864. Puddle clay core of dam fractured while the reservoir behind it was being filled for the first time.