On February 26, 1972 125 people were killed, 1,000 injured, and 4,000 were left homeless all because an earth dam failed, destroying the valley of Buffalo Creek. In 1960 Buffalo Mining Company, a part of Pittston Coal Company, built its first dam to block waste from the mining operations. A second dam was then built in 1966 six-hundred feet upstream. In 1970 Pittston Coal took over and a third dam was built, which by 1972 was sixty feet in height. It was a disaster waiting to happen, more and more waste kept being dumped, building up pressure behind three different dams. In 1967 there was a break in one of the dams creating minor flooding. In 1971 the dam located furthest back failed, however the second dam stopped the water from flooding. One would think this would be an eye opener to the coal company that something terrible could happen, but they continued to dump waste without updating the existing dams.
The Failure:.
Ponds and streams, which were also used as settling ponds for the water cleansing plant, were rising behind the first dam. Snow and rain were causing this rapid rise and the Pittston Company did not stop dumping water. Every day 500,000 gallons of water was being released behind the dam, and nobody questioned the stability of the dams even with the knowledge of the previous failure. On February 26, 1972 water levels had reached their maximum. The water level was 47 feet above the level of coal waste, and the pool behind it reached a volume of 17.6 million cubic feet of water. Sludge was being displaced from the heavy force of water, which had almost a "quick sand" texture. This weakened the foundation of the dam, which was not built correctly to begin with and created a slide failure of dam 3. .
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Dam 3 finally failed completely at 7:59 am releasing the flood wave, which when it came in contact with the burning coal-waste bank created steam explosions from a hydrostatic pressure increase.
