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We are talking about the Mosul Dam, where the city of the same name in Iraq is located, with a population of over 3 million people. This is one of the largest dams in the Middle East. In the event of even a partial destruction of the dam, the city of Mosul will be completely destroyed and flooded within a few hours, and there are very serious prerequisites for this. Here on the Tigris River, 37 years ago, a hydroelectric power station and that same dam with a giant reservoir were built. All major cities in Iraq are located on the Tigris River and in the event of a disaster, the entire country will suffer in the literal sense of the word. They started talking about the problems of the dam almost immediately after its construction, and only the lazy do not talk about catastrophic deformations and cracks. But as often happens, in Iraq they believe that everything is fine with the dam, and thanks to it the country has water and energy. The problem is that the dam was built in a place where there are practically no solid rocks, i.e. this project was initially utopian. But the Iraqi government demanded the construction of a dam capable of holding more than 10 billion tons of water. The dam was built essentially on gypsum, implementing a complex engineering project in just 5 years. The foundation of the dam is a 140-centimeter concrete base, in which cracks began to form after just a year, through which water seeped along the opposite banks, forming new and new reservoirs, simultaneously eroding the already fragile bridgehead of the structure.