ABSTRACT
The Bouzey dam near Epinal in Eastern France failed almost exactly 100 years ago, on Saturday 27th April 1895 at 5-45 in the morning (Fig. 1). The ensuing flood-wave, pouring northwards along the valley of the Aviere (Fig. 2) to the Moselle, drowned 85 people and extensively damaged canal works, railway structures, bridges, villages and farms. By the standards of dam disasters it was a serious accident although not so destructive of life as the Dale Dyke dam failure1 near Sheffield in March 1864, which killed 244 people, and nothing like as terrible as the death-toll of over 2200 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania when the South Fork dam collapsed in May 18892. For comparison, 75 people were killed in the famous Tay Bridge railway disaster of 1878.
