Gouhou Dam – A Case History of Failure Incident

Gouhou Dam is located on the Qia Pu Qia River, about 13 km northwest of the Town of Qia Pu Qia in Qinghai Province of China. The original earthfill concrete-faced dam was completed in 1989 with a maximum height of 71 m a crest length of 265 m and impounded a reservoir of 3 x 106 m3 capacity, providing irrigation and water supply to the downstream areas. The dam failed on 27 August 1993 while the reservoir water was below the design normal pool level, breached over a width of up to 133 m, causing an uncontrolled release of water into the downstream. The resulting flood claimed lives, resulted in economic loss and social disruption. Repaired and reconstruction of the failed structure was completed in 2001. This paper summarizes some issues about the design and construction contributing to the failure, performance of the dam, and describes the failure incident. In addition, the causes of the failure and lessons learned are presented, followed by a brief on the repairs and reconstruction of the dam. 7 pp., 9 figures, 7 references.