2019-08-10_The_Week_Junior_UK

4 The Week Junior•10 August 2019

Home news

O

n1August, morethan 1,500 people weretold

to leave their homes in Whaley Bridge,atown

in Derbyshire, over fears thatanearby damwas

about to burst.

Whathappened?

Heavyrain in thePeak District

meant thatwater overwhelmed

theTo ddbrookreservoir (a large

lakeused to storewater), which

is next to Whaley Bridge. The

reservoir holds around 1.

million tonnes ofwater.Too

muchwater is not usually a

problem because the dam has a

spillway (a large slopingconcrete

wall thatcarries anyextrawater safely

away intoariver). However,the spillway on the dam

started to crumble due to the heavyrainfall. There

werefears that people living in the town would be at

risk if the damcouldn’t be fixed.

Whatwas done to stop

it from bursting?

Toshoreup(strengthen)

the damwall, Royal Air

Forcehelicopters dropped

sandbags onto the damaged

part of the spillway to

strengthen it and prevent

it crumbling any further.

Meanwhile, firefighters used

23 high-volume pumps to

redirectwater out of thereservoir

and into the River Goyt. At one point the firefighters

werepumping out seven tonnes ofwateraminute.

This lowered thewater level andreleased the

pressureonthe damwall. At the timeTheWeek

Juniorwent to press, theemergencyservices who

werepumpingwater out of thereservoir said they

hadreachedasafe level. Thewaterwasreduced by

morethan eight metres, bringing thereservoir down

toaquarter of itscapacity.

Whatcaused the damage to the dam?

It’snot clear why the dam crumbled so dramatically

in the bad weather.Itisowned by The Canal and

RiverTrust, who say theycarried out an inspection in

November and found it to be“absolutely fine”.The

Government has said it is nowconsideringareview of

all the dams across thecountry.

WORD WEEK

OF

THE

Insects have bodies divided into segm

d these segments werethe inspirationfor

wordback in the 17thcentury.Insect is a

hortening of the Latinanimal insectum,

“segmented animal”,and wasoriginally

usedforany small,cold-blooded

creaturewith asegmented body,

including spiders. Theroot wordof

insect is the Latinsecare,tocut, whi

also gave usdissectandsection.

INSECT

THEWEEKINHISTORY

Pakistanwascreated on 14 August 1947, and India

wascreated the following day,asbothcountries

became independent from the British Empire. India

becameamostly Hinducountry,while the new

Pakistanwasmostly Muslim.Pakistanwasdivided

into two parts,West Pakistan (nowPakistan) and

EastPakistan (now Bangladesh). Asaresult of the

lit, known as thePartition of India, violencebroke

out. Aroundamillion people died and 12 million

people had to leave their homes.

14 and 15 August 1947

The cr eation ofPakistan and India

Dramatic rescueofcrumblingdam

Around 20 peoplerefused to

leave their houses after they

weretold they had to by the

emergency services. The police

criticised themforputting

themselves and the emergency

services in danger.Many others

thanked the emergency crews

who saved their town. They put

up signs and posters in their

gardens and on social media.

Residents have now been

allowed toreturn home.

AChinook helicopter drops Howdid localsreact?

sandbags on the dam.

The damaged spillway

at Toddbrookreservoir.

“s

,

Britain hands over power

to newly createdPakistan.

DIDYO

U

KNOW?

TheRoy

al AirFo

rcedropped

moret

han 500

tonnes

of

sandbags ont

othedam

tostrengthen it.