The 1786 earthquake-triggered landslide dam and subsequent dam-break flood on the Dadu river, southwestern China

Forensic studies of past hydraulic structure failures are rare despite their critical relevance to modern hydraulic design, and the writers (Dai et al., 2005) must be congratulated for their outstanding study. Herein the discussion is focused on two aspects of the conclusion. It is believed that dam overtopping was the primary cause of the Dadu river landslide dam failure, although aftershocks may have further weakened the embankment. Using physically based equations supported by recent physical model data, the maximum outflow may be estimated to be about 6000 m3/s.