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The 1971 Certej dam failure was a flood due to the failure of a
tailings dam A tailings dam is typically an earth-fill embankment dam used to store byproducts of mining operations after separating the ore from the gangue. Tailings can be liquid, solid, or a slurry of fine particles, and are usually highly toxic and poten ...
at the Certej mine which led to the death of 89 people. It occurred on 30 October 1971 in
Certeju de Sus Certeju de Sus () is a commune in Hunedoara County, Transylvania, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hun ...
commune,
Hunedoara County Hunedoara County () is a county (''județ'') of Romania, in Transylvania, with its capital city at Deva, Romania, Deva. The county is part of the Danube–Criș–Mureș–Tisa Euroregion. Name In Hungarian language, Hungarian, it is known as , ...
,
Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
.


Background

The tailing pond of Certej was used between 1936 and 1971 to hold the
cyanide In chemistry, cyanide () is an inorganic chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Ionic cyanides contain the cyanide anion . This a ...
-laced acid
tailings In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material ...
resulting from the
gold mine Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to more comple ...
exploitation of Certej.


The disaster

At 4:55 AM, the dam broke for a length of and from the tailings pond, of residue flowed towards the town of Certej, flooding a radius of around around the pond. The flood completely destroyed six apartment buildings, a
dormitory A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm), also known as a hall of residence, a residence hall (often abbreviated to halls), or a hostel, is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential qu ...
building and seven individual houses, resulting in 89 deaths and 76 people being wounded. Due to the early hour of the dam failure, most of the victims were asleep, which resulted in the high death toll.


Aftermath

The Romanian Communist authorities announced in the press only 48 deaths, in order to avoid declaration of a
national day of mourning A national day of mourning is a day, or one of several days, marked by mourning and memorial activities observed among the majority of a country's populace. They are designated by the national government. Such days include those marking the deat ...
. The survivors were compensated for the loss of their dwellings, receiving from the state an apartment or construction materials to rebuild their houses. A governmental commission made out of 16 experts was created to investigate the disaster. Following their investigation, they found that the tailings lost their stability due to the increase in height over the allowed limits. Also, a factor may have been the heterogenous content of the pond, as between 1936 and 1971, various materials were deposited, having different characteristics, leading to a fault slip. The prosecutors investigated the dam planner and five other people, but eventually they decided to drop all charges, as the disaster could not have been easily predicted.


See also

*
Ok Tedi environmental disaster The Ok Tedi environmental disaster caused severe harm to the environment along of the Ok Tedi River and the Fly River in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea from 1984 to 2013, with the damage still ongoing. The lives of 50,000 people have ...
– a similar tailings dam rupture in
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...
in 1984, still causing environmental damage for decades thereafter * Merriespruit tailings dam disaster in
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
in 1994 *
2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill The 2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill was a leak of cyanide near Baia Mare, Romania, into the Someș, Someș River by the gold mining company Aurul, a joint-venture of the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian government. The pol ...
, also in Romania *
Ajka alumina plant accident The Ajka alumina plant accident in October 2010 was a caustic waste reservoir chain collapse at the Ajkai Timföldgyár alumina plant in Ajka, Veszprém County, in western Hungary. On 4 October 2010, at 12:25  CEST (10:25 UTC), the n ...
in
Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
in 2010 * Bento Rodrigues dam disaster in
Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
in 2015


References

{{coord, 45.9607, N, 22.9798, E, source:wikidata-and-enwiki-cat-tree_region:RO, display=title Certej dam failure, 1971 Certej dam failure, 1971 Gold mining disasters Pollution in Romania History of Hunedoara County Waste disposal incidents Tailings dam failures Mining disasters in Romania 1971 disasters in Romania Dam failures in Europe October 1971 in Europe