Rock Collapse Floods Tarbela Dam Extension Works in Pakistan: Construction Halted, All Workers Evacuated Safely
HARIPUR — Pakistan's Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) said on November 9 that a rock collapse flooded works at the Tarbela Dam's Fifth Extension (T-5) hydropower project on the Indus River in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province: while crews were excavating a connecting tunnel, a weak rock mass gave way and water from the intake pit rushed into the tunnel and the under-construction powerhouse area. Construction has been suspended indefinitely, all workers were evacuated safely, and no one was hurt.
In its statement, WAPDA said the main tunnel, the powerhouse under construction, the tailrace culvert and the switchyard were undamaged, and rejected circulating reports that Tunnel Five had collapsed. The water in the intake pit has been fully drained, it said, and dewatering of the powerhouse area has begun. Haripur Deputy Commissioner Wasim Ahmed, who visited the site, said the situation was fully under control; the Express Tribune reported that one Pakistani worker was swept into the water and was pulled out by rescue teams.
The Tarbela Dam is the world's largest earth-and-rock-fill dam and a mainstay of Pakistan's electricity supply and agricultural irrigation. The T-5 project converts the dam's existing Tunnel Five into a power tunnel and adds three 510-megawatt units, for 1,530 megawatts in total. It is built by PowerChina and financed by the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; foreign personnel on site, including Chinese engineers, were all evacuated safely.
It is the second time in about 15 months that water has halted work at T-5. A Pakistani government inquiry in July 2026 found the contractor, the consultant and WAPDA jointly responsible for an earlier cofferdam collapse. Authorities have ordered a high-level inquiry into Monday's incident, no restart date has been set, and the project's completion target had already slipped to 2028.
(Source: Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority)
Source: Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：巴基斯坦塔贝拉大坝（资料图），美国政府摄，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Tarbela Dam in Pakistan (file photo), by the United States government, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
