The image of this failed bauxite tailings dam is very tragic and the pictures of the impact to the local town are very sad. But one thing that struck me about this particular image is how it appears that the failure occurred at the corner of the tailings impoundment. How many of us geotechnical engineers would have analyzed the corner? Most of the time you would pick a cross-section that appears to be conservative and go with that. Maybe you analyze both sides, but likely not the corner. I wonder what happened in this case…interesting. [Source: Dave’s Landslide Blog. Image: Dave’s Landslide Blog]
