MAN proposes, God disposes. If Prometheus was punished by the gods for stealing fire, modern man is being punished by nature for harnessing free-flowing water behind dams. Dams were invented when agro-based human communities needed to store water for seasonal irrigation. The earliest known dam is the Jawa Dam in Jordan, dateable to about 3,000 BCE. The ancient Egyptians, the Romans, the early Indians, and the Chinese imperial dynasties built dams to ensure fertility.
Europe woke up late. In the 12th century, the Dutch dammed the river Amstel. They gave the word ‘dam’ permanence by including it in the names of their cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam. The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and the spread of British influence saw the development of dams in Canada, India, Australia, and Egypt.
The first Aswan Dam (in its day, the largest masonry dam) was built by a British firm and financed by Ernest Cassel (better known today as the grandfather of Lady Edwina Mountbatten). Completed in 1902, it remained an engineering marvel until superseded by the present Aswan Dam, completed in the 1970s. The project became a pawn in superpower politics. Offers of financing by the US and Britain were withdrawn after they were angered by Nasser’s recognition of communist China. It was completed with Russian aid.
In the 1930s, the US government, to alleviate the social impact of the Great Depression, ordered the construction of the Hoover Dam across the Colorado River. Despite its challenging complexity, the Six Companies consortium completed the dam, two years ahead of schedule.
Nature has reminded mankind of its lethal power.
In the 1960s, because of the heavy outlay in large dam projects, the World Bank assumed the burden borne by governments. It funded large dams in Latin America, Africa and Asia. After a lull in the 1990s, triggered by ecological concerns, silting, and population displacement, it has resumed its support, funding projects in Tajikistan, Bhutan and Pakistan.
Pakistan has depended heavily on the World Bank to finance major dam projects — Tarbela, Mangla, and most recently the Dasu Hydropower Project, to which it has committed $2.3 billion. Pakistan became independent in 1947 and China in 1949. Since then, Pakistan has built over 1,000 reservoirs and dams. It has about 150 larger dams (over 15 metres tall). China has built 98,000 dams, including the massive 22,500 MW Three Gorges Dam (TGD) on the Yangtze River. (Tarbela’s capacity is around 5,000 MW.)
Structurally, they differ. The TGD is a concrete gravity dam. Tarbela is an earth-filled dam, and therein lies its geophysical vulnerability. On Aug 22, 1976, Tarbela, still under construction, developed a fault, serious enough for prime minister Z.A. Bhutto to air-dash to the site. US ambassador Henry Byroade reported to Washington that the emergency resulted from the failure of Tunnel 2. A decision was taken to open Tunnel 1 and to drain the lake (over 20 days) so that the tunnels could be inspected. Separately, Tunnels 3 and 4 had to be closed down due to “severe concrete erosion”.
Panic set in as people feared that the sudden release of water from Tarbela would destroy everything downstream, to Karachi. It did not help matters when the press reported that an American project engineer W. Shapiro had committed suicide, leaving a note “disclosing an error in design”.
Fifty years later, nature has reminded mankind of its lethal power. On Aug 26, 2026, a catastrophe occurred on the Nepal-China border when a melting glacier collapsed in the Himalayas, precipitating an avalanche of water, rock and soil into the Trishuli River valley. The debris flow swept away everything in its path, breaking down dams, bridges and human settlements. More than 1,000 people have died. Over 4,500 are missing.
One is reminded of the manmade havoc caused during World War II, when on the night of May 16-17, 1943, the RAF destroyed three German dams, flooding Germany’s industrial Ruhr valley. The RAF used “bouncing bombs” that could skip across water (like pebbles) and then explode near the dam. “The resulting floods destroyed power stations, factories, mines, and downstream bridges, severely impacting German war production.”
That British tactic should be a warning to combatant nations locked in water wars. Water flow may be used as a weapon, but water dammed is especially vulnerable. No country has so far used nuclear weapons, nor dams as targets. That will not prevent some deranged Dr Strangelove from pressing the doomsday button. Twenty years ago, Al Gore warned of the impact of climate change and global warming in a documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The critic, who dismissed that documentary as “a blatant intellectual fraud”, should now be invited to help those searching for the dead in the Trishuli River valley.
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2026
