Images Collected from the Internet Reveal the Failing Mechanism of the Tailing Dam Breach at Kolontar, Hungary

Abstract

The failure of the red sludge tailing dam at Kolontar in 2010 was the most severe environmental disaster in the history of Hungary. The official investigations are confidential because the legal case has not been closed. The publicly accessible information from the breach of the dam are the photographs taken by the media and news agencies. Collecting these images and analyzing the recorded fractures and displacements of the dam reveal the failing mechanism. The breach of the dam resulted from failing to sliding, which had been developed in three stages. This conclusion is consistent with the observed movements of the dam deduced from a persistent scattered radar interferometry deformation analysis conducted between 2003 and 2010.