ABSTRACT
Floods might seem simply another natural disaster, but we have sometimes contributed to a flooding catastrophe when we have failed in an attempt to harness water for our own purposes or to take adequate steps to protect ourselves against sudden inundations. The failure of the concrete dam was partially due to its arch design being combined with unstable local geological features that had not been adequately surveyed. Heavy rainfall overfilled the reservoir until the wall suddenly gave way under the enormous pressure. It is even less likely that visitors to Sheffield in northern England can have heard of a somewhat similar event that occurred nearly 150 years ago, involving a reservoir retained by a large earth dam. This chapter describes the facts, what happened and why, and what happened next, concluding with a short summary of lessons to be learned.
