Baghdad: Iraq is facing the grave danger of flash flood as the rebels are advancing menacingly towards the Haditha Dam, the second-largest in Iraq.
The ISIL militants advancing on the dam on the Euphrates River, about 120 miles northwest of Baghdad, were coming from the north, the northeast and the northwest. The fighters had already reached Burwana, on the eastern side of Haditha, and government forces were fighting to halt their advance, security officials said.
Alarmed that the insurgents would reach the dam, army officers told employees to stay inside and to be prepared to open the dam’s floodgates if ordered to do so, one employee said.
“This will lead to the flooding of the town and villages and will harm you also,” the employee said he told the army officer.
According to the employee, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, the officer replied: “Yes, I know, it will be against us and our enemies.”
This would not be the first time that dams have figured into the conflict. In April, when ISIL fighters seized the Fallujah dam, they opened it, flooding crops all the way south to the city of Najaf. The water at one point washed east as well, almost reaching Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad.
At least 1,300 people were killed in the country since June 5, and that the ranks of the displaced had grown to one million, about half of them chased from their homes by the ISIL seizure of Mosul.
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