Qualla: Ituango Dam

Ituango Dam: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pierre Markuse, CC BY 2.0. On May 25, 2018, Dr. Ordonez wrote a letter that dispensed with engineering jargon entirely: "Ituango project is dead and there is no control over it. We are sure that it is easier to fail than not to fail, and we are truly in a panic." He was describing the Hidroituango Dam, a 225-meter earth-fill embankment on the Cauca River in Colombia's Antioquia Department -- a project designed to be the largest power station in the country. Instead, for weeks that spring, it threatened to become the largest disaster.

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Image: Pierre Markuse | CC BY 2.0

Ituango Dam: A Thirty-Year Dream on the Cauca

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Algorithmix, CC0. The idea was older than many of the engineers who built it. A feasibility study completed in 1983 envisioned a massive hydroelectric dam on the Cauca River near the town of Ituango. But Colombia's economic crises shelved the project for over a decade, and final designs were not c...

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Image: Algorithmix | CC0

Ituango Dam: Ten Days That Nearly Broke the Dam

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ErreDeRua, CC BY-SA 4.0. Between April 28 and May 7, 2018, three landslides struck in rapid succession, blocking the single remaining diversion tunnel. The river had nowhere to go. Water began filling the unfinished reservoir while engineers scrambled to reopen the two tunnels that had already been seale...

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Image: ErreDeRua | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ituango Dam: The Human Cost Downstream

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Svenswikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. The 2018 crisis displaced thousands, but the dam's impact on surrounding communities had begun long before the landslides. Families who lived along the Cauca lost homes, livelihoods, and access to the river that had sustained them for generations. Fishermen watched their catches ...

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Image: Svenswikipedia | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ituango Dam: Power at What Price

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Svenswikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Despite the crisis, the project pushed forward. The first turbine generated electricity in late 2022, producing 6,480 megawatt-hours in its first 24 hours of operation -- just over three percent of Colombia's daily electrical consumption from a single unit. By late 2023, four of ...

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Image: Svenswikipedia | CC BY-SA 4.0