The 27 May 1937 catastrophic flow failure of gold tailings at Tlalpujahua, Michoacán, Mexico

Abstract

Abstract. On 27 May 1937, after one week of sustained heavy rainfall, a voluminous flood caused the death of at least 300 people and the destruction of the historic El Carmen church and several neighborhoods in the mining region of Tlalpujahua, Michoacán, central Mexico. This destructive flood was triggered by the breaching of the impoundment of the Los Cedros tailings and the sudden release of circa 16 Mt of water-saturated waste materials. The muddy silty flood, moving at estimated speeds of 20-25 m s −1 , was channelized along the Dos Estrellas and Tlalpujahua drainages and devastated everything along its flow path. After advancing 2.5 km downstream, the flood slammed into El Carmen church and surrounding houses at estimated speeds of ∼ 7 m s −1 , destroying many construction walls and covering the church floor with ∼ 2 m of mud and debris. Revision of eyewitness accounts and newspaper articles, together with analysis of archived photographic materials, indicated that the flood consisted of three muddy pulses. Stratigraphic relations and granulometric data for selected proximal and distal samples show that the flood behaved as a hyperconcentrated flow along most of its trajectory. A total volume of the Lamas flood deposit was estimated as 1.5 × 10 6 m 3 . The physically based bidimensional (2-D) hydraulic model FLO-2D was implemented to reproduce the breached flow (0.5 sediment concentration) with a maximum flow discharge of 8000 m 3 s −1 for a total outflow volume (sediment + water) of 2.5 × 10 6 m 3 , similar to the calculations obtained using field measurements.Even though premonitory signs of possible impoundment failure were reported days before the flood, and people living downstream were alerted, authorities ordered no evacuations or other mitigative actions. The catastrophic flood at Tlalpujahua provides a well-documented, though tragic, example of impoundment breaching of a tailings dam caused by the combined effects of intense rainfall, dam weakness, and inadequate emergency-management protocols -unfortunately an all-too-common case scenario for most of the world's mining regions.

Respuesta de plantas jóvenes de cuatro especies de coníferas a la exposición al mercurio

“…La minería es una causa importante de contaminación ambiental, una de las principales preocupaciones en esta actividad es el depósito de metales pesados en el ambiente, debido a la generación y manejo de los depósitos de residuos llamados en México "jales mineros" (Macías et al 2015). Los residuos mineros son el resultado de la extracción de los minerales del subsuelo y de los diferentes procesos metalúrgicos que se llevan a cabo para obtener los metales de interés económico en estos procesos; la capa superficial del suelo resulta dañada, y las rocas y relaves residuales a menudo son inestables y se convierten en fuentes de contaminación (Cao et al, 2010;Macías et al, 2015;Covarrubias y Peña, 2017).…”

Tailings-flow runout analysis: examining the applicability of a semi-physical area–volume relationship using a novel database

“…These flows can travel long distances at extremely rapid velocities (> 5 m s −1 ) (Blight, 1997;Blight et al, 1981;Harder and Stewart, 1996;Jeyapalan et al, 1983a, b;Kossoff et al, 2014;Macías et al, 2015;Rico et al, 2008a). Runout modelling and inundation mapping of tailings dam breaches are essential steps for estimating the potential consequences of a tailings dam failure, determining appropriately stringent design criteria and developing emergency response and preparedness plans (Canadian Dam Association (CDA), Knight Piésold Ltd., 2014;Martin et al, 2015Martin et al, , 2019Mc-Dougall, 2017). In recent years, there has been an increase in the study of the consequences of tailings dam breaches following several major disasters worldwide (Roche et al, 2017;Santamarina et al, 2019;Schoenberger, 2016).…”

Tailings-flow runout analysis: Examining the applicability of a semi-physical area–volume relationship using a novel database

“…When a tailings dam breach occurs, a destructive flow of mine tailings can develop (e.g. (Macías et al, 2015)). These flows may travel over substantial distances and impact large areas (Rico et al, 2008a).…”

“…Tailings-flows can take various forms, ranging from a massive debris flood consisting of water and sediment, to a flowslide (Hungr et al, 2014). These flows can travel long distances at extremely rapid velocities (> 5 m/s) (Blight, 1997;Blight et al, 1981;Harder and Stewart, 1996;Jeyapalan et al, 1983aJeyapalan et al, , 1983bKossoff et al, 2014;Macías et al, 2015;Rico et al, 2008a). Runout modelling and inundation mapping of tailings dam breaches are essential steps for estimating the potential consequences of a tailings dam failure, determining appropriately stringent design criteria, and developing emergency response and preparedness plans (Canadian Dam Association (CDA), 2014; Knight Piésold, 2014; Martin et al, 2015Martin et al, , 2019McDougall, 2017).…”

“…The number of available empirical-statistical runout models is limited (Section 2). Most of the commonly used numerical models were developed primarily for either clear water flood analysis (Brunner, 2016;Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI), 2007;Martin et al, 2019) or the analysis of flow-like landslides (McDougall, 2017;McDougall and Hungr, 2004;Pastor et al, 2002;Pirulli et al, 2017) and do not necessarily account for the compositional variety of tailings and its potential influence on the downstream flow behaviour (Dibike et al, 2018;Macías et al, 2015;Pirulli et al, 2017).…”