Buffalo Creek Flood

 Aerial View of Buffalo Creek Area, West Virginia, U.S.A. taken after failure of dam #3.

February 26, 1972:

The Buffalo Creek Flood caused by a burst dam kills 125 in West Virginia. The Buffalo Creek Flood was a disaster that occurred on February 26, 1972, when the Pittston Coal Company's coal slurry impoundment dam #3, located on a hillside in Logan County, West Virginia, USA, burst four days after having been declared 'satisfactory' by a federal mine inspector.
The resulting flood unleashed approximately 132,000,000 US gallons (500,000 m³) of black waste water, cresting over 30 ft high, upon the residents of 16 coal mining hamlets in Buffalo Creek Hollow. Out of a population of 5,000 people, 125 were killed, 1,121 were injured, and over 4,000 were left homeless. 507 houses were destroyed, in addition to forty-four mobile homes and 30 businesses. The disaster also destroyed or damaged homes in Lundale, Saunders, Amherstdale, Crites, Latrobe and Larado. In its legal filings, Pittston Coal referred to the accident as "an Act of God."
Dam #3, constructed of coarse mining refuse dumped into the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek starting in 1968, failed first, following heavy rains. The water from Dam #3 then overwhelmed Dams #2 and #1. Dam #3 had been built on top of coal slurry sediment that had collected behind dams # 1 and #2, instead of on solid bedrock. Dam #3 was approximately 260 feet above the town of Saunders when it failed.Two commissions investigated the disaster. One, the Governor's Ad Hoc Commission of Inquiry, appointed by Governor Arch A. Moore, Jr., was made up entirely of members sympathetic to the coal industry or government officials whose departments might be complicit in the genesis of the flood. After Arnold Miller, then president of the United Mine Workers, and others were rebuffed by Gov. Moore regarding their request that a coal miner be added to the commission, a citizen's commission assembled to provide an independent review of the disaster. The Governor's Commission of Inquiry report [1] called for legislation and further inquiry by the local prosecutor. The report [2] by the Citizen's Commission concluded the Buffalo Creek-Pittston Coal Company was guilty of murdering at least 124 men, women and children. Additionally, the chair of the Citizen's Commission, Norman Williams, the Deputy Director of the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources, called publicly and in testimony before the legislature for the outlawing of coal strip mining throughout the state. He testified that strip mining could not exist as a profit making industry unless it is allowed by the state to pass on the costs of environmental damage to the private landowner or the public.

Wow, that is depressing.