Thread by @kddsky

At least 38 days before the massive collapse of #KakhovkaDam, a wall adjacent to turbulent flow, broke apart:

A video by @InvestigatorUa from April 28th shows that a big chunk of a wall separating outflow of HPP and the Dam is half submerged in the water.

Another drone video from May 16th shows the same picture: section of that separator wall broke off.

Just to have a separate source of confirmation: satellite images days before the collapse also clearly show that section of the wall broke apart.

(@Maxar 28th of May)

And it is quite a huge piece of concrete, so not an incident to be dismissed easily.

This could indicate that the "risberma" — a river-floor cover that is supposed to protect the underlying sand river floor from being washed out — is probably already damaged.

The s-shaped roadway falling down days before the catastrophe — could be a continuation of this wash out process.

This could indicate that there were long-running issues in the dam integrity, that russia has been either criminally ignoring for over a month or willingly causing the catastrophe by overflowing the #KakhovkaReservoir and ill-maintaining the dam.

I haven't seen this evidence pointed out, so I'm highlighting it for further discussion.

I'm not an expert on dams, so relying on community's judgement of this: @gbrumfiel @davidhelms570 @Gergyl @BruckenRuski @novakakhovka_ua cc @RuslanLeviev

P.S.: how that wall is even called?

/ @threadreaderapp unroll.