@ 10

there are more than a hundred nuclear power plants in the USA.

great pictures as always.

Makes you marvel our own engineering capabiities in being able to harness such ferocious forces in the first place.

yeah we in US were bussy covering the MJ...who died eons back

martin75 - do you have a link to the video on Utube?

Thanks.

Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBo2WEl7u08

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpNQqzR-u_k

..from RED STORM RISING

"I'll say this for Ivan, when he has an industrial accident, he doesn't screw around!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egeABBr5hyA

@ #25

Here´s the link to the video on utube. recorded with mobilphone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cHMS_7oqvI&NR=1

and another one with the video in it, but with comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hVUeNp3o3M&NR=1

we in germany heard nothing about that accident! would something like that happen in a western-european state or in the us it would be the big headline in every newsletter...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cHMS_7oqvI

(Initial speculation) To have so many turbine units affected looks like a turbine seizure from loss of high pressure lubricating oil supply. Basically there should be two 100% lubricating oil systems primary and secondary, and a third to allow for a failure shutdown. It has been known that these hydro-turbines will tear themselves out of a dam/structure when starved of oil.

@25 Just look for it, it's right there: YouTube - Accident at Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfeG97d8oXQ

Water gushed to engine room, destroyed 3 harvesters and damaged other 7. As I've read, harvesters worked on maximum of their power. When harvester number 2 became to vibrate too strong, workers began to stop it. At this time something happend.
martin75 is right about doors.

... I don't get it - every posting made there's always the referral back to the US. And if it's about another country (e.g Russia in this case) - there's a comparison between 'x' country and the US. In the 28 comments, there's about 8 which have referrals or comparisons.

Please Please leave the egotistical comments out please. The comparisons and referral just reaffirm my beliefs that the greater US population having a 'me' mentality.

Some more pictures of the dam accident

http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3031739.html#cutid1
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3031739.html#cutid1
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3031817.html#cutid1
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3032285.html#cutid1
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3032409.html#cutid1
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3032810.html#cutid1
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3032810.html#cutid1
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3033773.html#cutid1
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3033936.html#cutid1

There is also video of the accident itself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBo2WEl7u08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc1ac9YrJDE

This is a video from security cameras

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9QiP26Ea_w

And this is the video of a guy fleeing the accident. He is filming people who went up the mountains. There was a huge panic. People were afraid that the whole valley will be flooded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBPdSFgsSq4

Hi Tony, here it is the link on youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cHMS_7oqvI&feature=related if it

doesn't work just type the name + accident+ russia and you will find it. I have a powerpoint report that describes all the acident by a board of consultant engineers, and think it was a non controled close in one of the doors. It is so sad for all the people who dies.

The power of water can be so surprising when it starts as a single drop.

Dear Michael # 29, I would assume that the people "referring back to the US" would more than likely be a citizen of the USA, so it would be natural for them to compare 'X' country with the one that they're familiar with....(the one they live in.....that being the USA) I mean what country are we supposed to compare to?? One that we don't live in? Now that would be egotistical. Come on man, try to keep up with the rest of us here if you can.....

Number 17 makes it look like the dam was bleeding.

The power of water

@10 @pk

Hmmm... okay, so no hydroelectric, and no nuclear. How exactly do you expect to generate electricity for 7 billion people when the oil starts to run out? "Clean" coal? Wind? Fusion?

The reason of this disaster: all these equipment is old and without any maintenance (Russian standard). It is at the edge of its lifetime. So it failed.

Just imagine that Russians have lots of old nuclear missiles, also stored without any maintenance. Hope they wont fire themselves to the preprogrammed targets.

@ 29: this is a US blog. get over it.

@29 atleast someone came up with a sensible comment,,,,y is everything compared to the US ???,,,

It happened near the city I live in (Krasnoyarsk). If you guys want to check out witness videos, here they are:

http://sibnovosti.ru/articles/83016 (witness outside of the dam) and
http://sibnovosti.ru/articles/84767 (from cctv) cameras

Site is in russian, but video is pretty clear without words.

omg what had happend?

It was a most terrible anthropogenic disaster on ex-USSR since Chernobyl.
More photos of the dam before disaster you can find there:
http://4044415.livejournal.com/51285.html
http://4044415.livejournal.com/51685.html
http://4044415.livejournal.com/51884.html

http://rukhakasia.livejournal.com/
use google translate))) the one of most tryely story.
hello from russia)

A tiny little detail that the authors forgot to mention is that there were survivors, but nobody bothered to rescue them because the governor said he did not think anybody could have survived. Yes, really.

Amazing the power of water and the damage inflicted. The spotlight once again shines on Russian inattentiveness to the details. Very sad for the people of the nearby community who lost so much in a very short period of time. The funeral pictures are particularly telling. That a large oil slick was the period at the end of a tragic sentence makes this all the more numbing.

Hello from Russia.

to #35: Typical western arrogance. Even in stormy 90th when Russian economy was in bad shape, such places as dams or nuclear stations were properly maintained.

As for reason for disaster: it would be published Sept 15th. There is a lot of speculations and theories in the net, but nobody (except specialists who work on investigation) knows for sure.

I apologize for using the Google translator. Moderators fill in, please!

Reasons are established, on Sept. 15 and officially publish the show on television.
But as long as nothing is said! It is known that all 80 bolts of the second hydraulic separated. Part of the design (weight of 8 tons!) Flew a few meters under running water. What and destroyed a third of the computer room.
No explosion of the transformer was not! From this information? When the water came - started shorting working hydropower. They began to accelerate, and also were damaged. Not damaged sixth hydraulic unit - because it did not work. It will launch next month, when the closed roof. Still later run two little victims of unit.
Three automation systems have not worked in a row. This is impossible, but it happened! The leaves have already closed manually. And yet, they say, was the seismic activity, but of the four detectors of the station - on (somehow) had only one.

Cameras at the station: V9QiP26Ea_w (youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9QiP26Ea_w

magar Iran Morde????? ba pole mardome bichare dobare barashon dorost mikone..... Hagheshon bud.

There are no any official or expert opinions about causes, so it is mistery. It is not an old plant, quite new equipment actually.

holy shizzot...#4 vs. #11 !! that massive concrete column is almost completely obliterated...there must have been a big mushroom cloud w/ this one.

At this time in Romania, it's a trend, everything that goe's wrong in RO, it's Traian Basescu's fault ! Soo.. Let's extend this World Wide : It's Basescu's FAULT !

@#36 It's not WESTERN arrogance, it's HUMAN arrogance. Don't think for a moment that Russians are humble, meek people. We are all egotistical, self-centered people. Individualism isn't just a Western condition.

there is many more timebombs like these or even worse!

Russian Technology in full display.

Photo 22: I never understand why politicians feel compelled to go to disaster sites to see the carnage for themselves. What, Mr. Putin, you couldn't stay where you were and take the experts' word for it? Or are you surveying the site so you can begin work on your own reconstruction plans?

Who was the first politician to come up with the whole "disaster tour" as a photo op anyway? Stay at home, save your constituents/subjects some money, and just wait for the damn official report.

For those who shun "Russian technology" may want to have a think about who is helping Iran with their Nuclear program.

the russkies are trying. too little, too late. how do you spell chernobyl?

AD. 20
To prawda rosjanie to rosjanie jest ich przecie¿ tak wielu...

@31: "We"? Perhaps *you* didn't find anything in the news, but the issue was pretty well covered: FAZ, Sueddeutsche, Spiegel ...

Why the comments on Russian technology/maintenance? Picture 4 (pre-accident) shows a clean, neat, orderly area - usually associated people taking care.

Like no one else has had a damn accident. Like no one else has had a power plant accident.

Russia has one of the largest world populations and the corresponding infrastructure to go with it. Therefore, it is reasonable that they will have a corespondingly higher number of accidents.

It's happened here:
Schoellkopf Power Station, Niagara Falls, NY, 1956.

Tom (post #2): What do you mean "how long"? Have you forgotten the Minnesota I-35W bridge collapse two years ago (13 dead, 145 injured)? Clearly, we are no better at this kind of preventable stuff than the Russians. :(

i like those people who whole for the benifts the humansbeings .
and proud for their nations.this is one of them.
this project not only fulfil the energy needs of the country but also prourd for the people of that nation.
ali panhyar
sindh,pakistan

Wow, all that pollution is horrible.

soon 2012...

what about some big pictures with the flood in Istanbul

Bad accident, good pictures

Yet another reason to loathe American news coverage, as this disaster was skipped over almost entirely.

Seriously WTF does it take to make news in this country. I bet if XYZ celebrity was at the dam site, this would be a historic event!

In the age of the internet, it took a month before I learned about this.

Am I the only one who is bothered by the lack of coverage?

Humans caused it by stupid incompetence and underestimation of ENERGY.

@72 ......2012, seriously? People who bring this up scare me. Are you going to be one of those people who thinks it will be all over in 2012 so we might as act like a bunch of idiots until then? Please! Good way to justify your ignorance though....lets just blame these accidents (however horrific or insignificant) on the ancient Myan calendar and call it a day.

We didn't hear about this in the US, perhaps Russia wanted to save itself the embarrassment and blacked out the story. They can do that over there you know...
Either way, Russia seems to have more than their fair share of tragedy historically - this is just another example in a long line.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Y7_VqPKIg

@Bandit
Oh, right. Mr. Putin give theese order to the US news channels:
"blacked out the story, guys!"

It looks like they had a valve at the top, an intake valve just below the surface of the impounded water. If this valve was closed to de-water the turbine, then failed you would get an explosive increase in pressure when the front wave of water falling into the turbine area reached the turbine. Think of the weight of a column of water 300 feet high and 20 feet in diameter.

@72
So why are you waiting until 2012? Why not go rapture yourself now?

Better yet, why not try and make the world a better place with the life you've been given, instead of relishing the thought of divine vengeance on humankind?

Replying to 5: ARE YOU KIDDING????? Russians do not have any technology, the last time they (I should say we) had one was in '70. I wonder how this construction survived for so long.

Holy mother of God! Such destructions! I wonder why this wasn't reported in the US? I feel sorry for the families who lost someone in that immense explosion. I just hope it doesn't happen to the other hydroelectric dams around the world. Totally tragic!

Its realy interesting, why nobody in US know about accident.
Unfortunately, we have about 70 people dead.
cee also
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3021464.html
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3036788.html
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3031739.html

with love from RF

Oh, my goodness! Why didn't I hear about this? Was it even reported anywhere in the USA? My heart hurts for all who lost their lives and the families left behind to mourn. It was a great tragedy. I'm so sorry for the loss.

i dont know why this terrible news is not known by so much people.
regarding this case, i believe that the engineers have been working so hard developing this dam. and i do believe that they can also learn from this accident that there is always a risk on developing project, a black swan risk: a risk that has less probability but very high impact, like catastrophic. i hope many parties will work together solving this problem in term of technical, environmental, people' safety due to pollution.

I'm afraid that the only way to make sure it's covered on the news is to have film of people actually dying - the U.S. media really does seem to love that.

#17

One: *no*, this accident had nothing to do with water pressure. An old, dirty, oil-cooled transformer sparked and exploded.

Two: nuclear power plants *do* use water under pressure; up to about 150 atmospheres worth (which is equivalent to about 1,500 meters of water, and that dam isn't 1,500 meters tall.)

All that "seems pretty clear" is that you aren't an electrical engineer.

Yeah, I'm an American, but I'm also an Engineer, so I understand some of the forces involved here. The Laws of Physics are not debatable, no UN lawyer will save you from them.

So I'd like to extend my sympathies to the families of the workers here.

The only Rusian I know is Das Vidanya,,, I hope it's appropriate.

#81, don't care about the diameter. And regarding the "height" part, the turbine is prepared to work every day under such pressure plus the energy of the water running.
In some photos it looks like the cause may have been a failure in the concrete, but some explanations in YouTube say it may have been other, like water reflux (I don't believe that one), water hammer (more probable), etc. Probably some high vibration plus a concrete crack is credible.

My other question is: ¿what about the people in the videos trying to keep the gate open for the other people in the cars to escape? I would have broken that gate and escape myself...

Ah, and I agree with #67, the site looks very clean for a power plant with no maintenance.

I'm no engineer, so I couldn't say if Russian engineering is on par with American engineering or German engineering or whatever, but I do know that when you have a structure built to withstand the force of water, eventually it will give if you don't constantly work to maintain or reinforce it. And I am sure that the Russian government is no different than the American government when it comes to allocating funds, with the idea that "if it's not broke, don't fix it" because there are so many issues and only so much money. That's a fact of life. Was this preventable? In a perfect world, yes, but this world is far from perfect. And should it have been on the news, yes, but the media is more interested in the lives of the rich and famous than the lowly working joe. That is why it was heard on NPR and BBC rather than ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc.

My sympathies to the families of this terrible accident.
мои симпатии к семьям этого ужасного несчастного случая

It seams that everyone wants to point the finger at everyone else. Reguardless of what happened, the families of the victims should be the main concern. Then learn from what realy happened and grow from those lessons learned. This to include such things as the the engineering aspects all the way down to the rescue operarions. How can we prevent something like this from happening again ? How do we improve our operations in managing an incident of this magnitude,ect.... My prayers go out to all .

"Chechen militants have claimed responsibility for the breach in the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam in Siberia in an Aug. 21 Web posting. The militants added that they would wage economic warfare against Moscow, a departure from the usual Chechen modus operandi of targeting civilians. Such a campaign could see attacks against Russian petroleum sector infrastructure, something that would bring a severe Kremlin response.

Chechen militants posted a letter on a rebel Web site Aug. 21 claiming they had carried out an attack that caused the breach in the Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam. The breach resulted in at least 26 deaths, left 49 missing and has plunged several cities in Siberia into an electricity crisis. The Web posting claimed that the militants, who referred to themselves as the Battalion Martyrs, managed to “plant an anti-tank grenade with a timer, which caused a blast much stronger than they [the Battalion] expected.” The Battalion Martyrs claim to be part of a group under one of the last Chechen leaders, Doku Umarov, who has maintained a low profile except for the occasional Web posting. The Kremlin has denied the Chechen claim of responsibility for the dam breach.

The Aug. 17 dam breach has been big news in Russia, with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visiting the site Aug. 21. The Chechen group’s claim of responsibility could spark a heavy reaction from Moscow — which probably is precisely why the group made the claim." ---Stratfor

Just try to comprehend the massive physical power of basic physics to create such destruction! Unbeliveable force and destruction was unleashed on steel and concrete that weighed hundreds of tons. It must have been pure hell for those workers who lived their last moments, and also for those lucky survivors that made it out and away. May God rest their souls! What was the start of the chain of events that led to this disaster? Was it human technological error? Or was it a purely accident of nature? Beautifully done photography to document this event.

You know why there was no US coverage,no americans involved.The US is amongst the worst at covering news only if US interests are involved.

God bless us people of Iran whose dictator regime is buying unsafe russian technologies all over.

my name is felixkenu and i am 27 years Ghanaian.I am welder and iwant to come work with your company. i am welder at zoomlion gh Ltd in Ghana.i have some idea to replacement of all those subtancies.I need visa come their to work to develop the country.

Not to diminish the pictures, which are telling, but there was coverage and you could have heard about it the day it happened. AP and Reuters carried the wire, I heard it mentioned on NPR and saw it in a FOX News rss the day of. BBCAmerica also mentioned it. It's the MSM, most of the papers and the TV stations that felt this wasn't really important.

But honestly, does someone really think people in Russia heard about the Mississippi bridge collapse? The MSM didn't really cover the coal ash spill in Tennessee -when it happened- and that was a lot closer to home, though thankfully no one died. If you care so much about the state of the media go to the wires and feeds and leave the papers and TV "news hours" and "morning shows" behind. Spend the few minutes you'd otherwise spend watching a sitcom or that filler news and do some digging. Vote with your money and hunt down your news instead of complaining about having to eat mass produced scandals/celebrity filler.

This accident isn't about "us" versus "them", nor about "Russian technology" better or worse than "American technology". It's about the dangers always present when we try to outwit nature; almost inevitably, nature's forces reassert themselves to the detriment of our puny efforts.

Haven't we seen during the 20th century the absurdity of making comparisons between nations? Everyone of them is different in degrees, but the people who inhabit them, and the world, are much more alike than different. When tragedies occur, each of us ought to be reminded that, but for accidents of fate, we or our families might be the victims. Life is fragile, whether one is a Russian, American or resident of anywhere else on earth.

My sincerest condolences to the families of killed and injured workers.

My sincerest appreciation to everyone everywhere who daily risk life and limb, unseen, to make a comfortable modern lifestyle possible.

Yes, disasters happen, and are often due to human failure. Yes, it is scary to contemplate similar management failures within the system (the people) which monitors and controls our nuclear (or is it nucular) weapons.
Remember that we here in the United States are still recovering from such a failure where we allowed our political system to be hijacked by a few, to start a war (we are still losing several lives a week to this disaster) which we don't seem to be able to end. These are people problems - much more than failures of engineering. We need to learn all we can from these events.

2 Infosaur:

=The only Rusian I know is Das Vidanya,,, I hope it's appropriate.=
I appreciate your efforts in Russin :) But "Das Vidanya" sounds Sanskritish :)) No offence...
Correctly is "Do svidania" which exactly like Au revoir - "until seeing you again"

A truly beautiful part of the world - my condolences to all those involved.

74 deaths, seems rather odd that their would be that many folks in the area. Most dams in the world don't have 74 personnel. Must have been testing the generator over speed setting..

felt sad to hear $ see the men dead $ its all due to bad design,and bad workmenship of contractor,and negligance of engineer"s, and bad working of the hydel plant. dam may be constructed over folds $ faults

This is a tragedy, no doubt about it, But I have to question the issue of safety standards there, Photo #7 illustrates how even the simplest safety issues are ignored. The man is cutting steel with a torch and only one person is wearing safety glasses? And even those don't have side shields. Most likely they are just regular prescription glasses. My point is: If the simplest of safety standards can be ignored here, then what about the ones of a larger scale. This could easily be the result of Human error, and maybe have been prevented. My sincere condolences to the families of those involved.

Turbine shaft may have sheared (due to fatige?) making the turbine runner fall into de draft tube, allowing penstock water pressure onto the turbine cover (ca. 10000 tons!) on which the generator rotor rests (ca. 1000 t). That is enough to make the generator rotor fly trough the roof and water to flood the powerhouse!

I'm very sad about the people, my condolences to all those involved in such accident.

omg! i love this pictures!! i mean not by the content, but by the way it is.. i donno.... i love this pics!

i want to know what happened in the hydro power plant.

The 2nd turbine was routinely overloaded. The vibrations were shaking everything around the unit for months. The turbine cover studs failed catastrophically. All of them. They all showed singes of significant fatigue.

Very simple: cyclic overloading, lousy fasteners, lack of inspection, fatigue cracks and then the failure. Just like in the textbook.

Can't tell by the pictures if the 2nd turbine actually flew out and did some of that damage before it stopped spinning. One of the turbines is showing sitting cock-eyed semi intact but I don't know if that's the culprit 2nd unit.

Just like always, lack of respect to the forces of nature and no value of human safety or lives what so ever.

Bastards.

The generator number two, it was gone through big reparing several months before. After that it had the vibration over the limits and that vibration grew gradually all the time, much bigger than another units. So it was obviously defective after repair. The managers did not stop it (probably because that reparing was done by the company owned by the managers )
15 minutes before the crash it had the vibration 4 times bigger than the limit.
Because of long and strong vibration the fasteners and another parts got deformed by metal fatigue.
At moment of crash generator number two was going through the unstable mode, switching from one stable rate to another. In this state the water vortex under the turbine apply strong vertical forces on it. Bolts breaks and hydropower unit moved up, the water moved up.
No realistic evacuation plan existed for this situation.
The system for stopping the water had not the separate electric power supply at all. It took about one hour to stop the water, to close the gates manually.
The dam itself has a long history of troubles, which started long before its completion. All the history of this power station goes through different political systems and is the perfect political thriller, to be continued, as the political system is still changing gradually all the time and the state of the dam too. And yes, no realistic evacuation plan...
You will need to wait several years for the next part. This fact destroys all the intrigue effects, I know. Sorry for that. This is the sad aspect of the life.

amazing picture!,
in my country there is many hydroelectric power, and i think it is using Russian technology,

Why are all you morons mentioning the US, this story has nothing to do with the US! Liberals are ALL idiots, the US government doesn't pay for things like this, it's the private utility companies that must pay, especially if they fail safety inspections and the like. Don't ignorantly mention spending as if raising taxes will solve all the world's problems.

Wow, no offense, but in reading through the comments there are a lot of very ignorant people (in the technical sense) around. No, a clean floor does not even remotely imply that the turbines were well maintained. No, this was NOT a nuclear plant, it is/was a hydrodynamic plant...my 10yo son learned the difference in science class...sheeshe...The majority of the damage was caused by unregulated water at very high pressure being diverted because of a turbine failure, and subsequent failure of water channeling gates (water pressure at the bottom of the dam in the pipe that leads from the top of the dam to the bottom is a function of the height, diameter of the pipe, and the mass of the fluid...the greater the height, the higher the force the water has). Excessive turbine runout, caused by wear, allowed catastrophic vibrations to literally tear out the turbine, aided by the high pressure of the water, literally lifting the turbine out of its surroundings. The unregulated high pressure water literally blew out all the concrete and steel superstructure. Once water flooded everything in a matter of seconds, any electrical/electronic controls failed, not allowing any safety interlocks to work. My professional guess is that it was bad/non-existent maintenance, poor quality/under-specified materials (e.g. steel, bolts, etc), and a total absence/ignorance of vibration monitoring, as well as no failure mode analysis/disaster plan caused a massive chain reaction of failure. This is the result of poor maintenance and even poorer engineering. The sparks in the movie are a result of water hitting the high voltage transformers & transmission lines, causing shorts.
Its a pity that so many ppl died....and I would bet my life that it had to do with kickbacks and corruption of the plant management....sigh...they should all be shot....

morons! at least it wasn't a nuke plant this time. someone at that plant knew it was a bad idea to use turbine #2 to control the grid frequency and he/she didn't have the nads to say "NO!"

Well the management of the Plant knows that the turbine # 2 has a long time problem (cavities and cracks) and they repaired it but no rebalance on the turbine has happen but the vibration is still on going and abnormal. The plant manager should decide base on previous records of history and maintenance of the turbine. And for safety reason he will stop it to avoid damage to property and life. No one will accept the blame and no body is perfect but a simple , quick decision and good judgement, the accident will not happened.

The owner of the Hydro Power Plant Abused their equipment and become greed for money and avoiding the safety practises. The consequece is a fraction of load (640MW) to power grid equals the life of the 75 personnels, 1+ billion US dollar damages to property and the spilling of transfomers oil in the river. Accident can be prevented if the Management and Owner of the Plant Think Safety First.

When in doubt, check the Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano-Shushenskaya_hydro_accident

Although a disaster,the pictures taken of the site, inspite of grave risks, is commendable! We think a hydro-electric power dam built once lasts for ever. It is never so. Like an organic body it needs constant sustainance and renewal support.