- Start
- May 12, 201890% CONFIDENCEfrom the source
Hidroituango Dam Crisis Forces Mass Evacuation in Colombia
- On 12 May 2018 a sudden release of water flooded Puerto Valdivia and Taraza after the diversion tunnels at Colombia's Hidroituango Dam on the Cauca river were blocked, forcing about 600 people to evacuate initially[3]
- Antioquia declared a public calamity; the Red Cross issued maximum alert downstream and evacuation orders covered Sucre, Cordoba and Bolivar departments, with about 8,000 people evacuated by 20 May 2018 and over 130,000 people at risk[3]
- Operator EPM worked to raise the dam's height; EPM workers used the turbine tunnel to discharge water and completed the roughly $4 billion dam wall, and more than 100,000 people were relocated downstream[2][3]
- In April 2021 the Comptroller ordered seizure of assets of Integral SA, the dam's designer, with contractors to pay $1.7 billion (COP 4.2 trillion) for alleged damages; criminal and disciplinary probes followed[2]
References 381% CONFIDENCE
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
- [1]90%youtube.com/watch?v=nOdeymwoZIkyoutube.com· Posted Sep 22, 2026· Starts May 12, 2018 ✓· 50% of score
Happened as dated, per the source: "On 12 May, a sudden release of water from the dam flooded municipalities of Puerto Valdivia and Taraza downstream."
- [2]72%Colombia seizes assets of firm behind disastrous dam projectcolombiareports.com· Added Sep 22, 2026· 50% of score
Colombia Reports, in an April 2021 piece on asset seizures from the dam's engineering firm, references the 2018 near-collapse and evacuation of "over 100,000 people downstream," corroborating the event's occurrence though the article itself postdates the pin's stored date by nearly three years.
- [3]80%Colombia – 130,000 Threatened by Dam Collapse in Antioquiafloodlist.com· Published May 20, 2018· 0% of score
Floodlist, published 20 May 2018, reports the diversion-tunnel blockage that began 12 May triggering evacuations, directly matching the pin's stored 12 May 2018 date.
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Lesotho Highlands Development Authority
