William Wixon wrote:

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Joseph Gwinn wrote:
In article ,
Ignoramus17616 wrote:

Joe, it looks like they were repairing some of the water channels
inside the dam, which broke a wall and flooded the control room.

That doesn't explain all the physical damage to what had been a very
strongly built building. Was the water channel broken when the turbine
went, or the other way around?

A water hammer on #2 resulted in the destruction of the rotor which
fractured the housing and threw a 900 ton piece of equipment completely
off
it's mount. Water continued to flood the hall through the fractured
turbine
housing and since all power was lost, the safety systems couldn't open the
safety gates. All of the afected transformers apparently blew as well and
their oil flowed from the building when emergency power came on and the
emergency discharge gates were opened manually.

That's what I got anyway.

JC

--
John R. Carroll




some more photos (i hadn't seen these yet).

wow.

http://dfilter.livejournal.com/592091.html


damn shame. terrible tragedy.

the wiki article said the one turbine blowing up caused a electric shutdown
which resulted in the other turbines that were on line to overspeed and blow
up too.
amazing.

clever design.