When Dams Fail: The Growing Crisis of Tailings Management

In recent months, a disturbing pattern has emerged across three continents: catastrophic tailings dam failures that have taken lives, destroyed livelihoods, and poisoned environments. From Zambia and Bolivia to multiple sites across Indonesia, each collapse serves as a brutal reminder that mining waste is not a passive threat—it’s a timebomb when poorly designed or recklessly managed.

Tailings dams are among the largest engineered structures in the world, yet their regulation and maintenance often lag behind the pace of extraction. In Indonesia, the situation is especially dire. At the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP), two tailings facilities collapsed within days of each other in March 2025. The first, on March 16, caused a massive red wave of liquified waste to flood the Bahadopi River and the village of Labota, risking the health of 341 families. The second, on March 21, led to the deaths of three workers. Investigations revealed deeply flawed practices: one facility was built over an infilled pond, raising serious concerns about groundwater intrusion and geotechnical instability.

As if that weren't enough, Fatufia, Sulawesi, saw a fatal tailings landslide on March 22—Indonesia’s third such event in a single week. Despite being labeled a "dry stack" facility, the area was flooded and equipment submerged. When a so-called safer design fails, it prompts serious questions about construction quality, ongoing maintenance, and regulatory enforcement.

Indonesia’s mining zones are not just wet—they’re seismically active. The IMIP sits along the Matano Fault, part of a broader fault system known for its destructive earthquakes. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall in Sulawesi is routine, not exceptional. These environmental factors—when paired with deforestation, lateritic soils, and unchecked expansion—form a near-perfect recipe for failure.

Yet across these sites, we see the same failures in foresight: filtered tailings stored above high water tables, insufficient drainage, and inadequate risk modeling for rainfall and seismicity. In Fatufia, the landslide followed days of rainfall, but satellite imagery suggests the ground may have been compromised long before. These are not isolated miscalculations—they're systemic design gaps that put entire communities at risk.

The call for reform is not new, but the evidence is louder than ever. The Safety First Guidelines, supported by over 160 organizations and experts, stress that any dam with the potential to take even one life must be designed to withstand the largest possible flood for that location. Anything less is unacceptable.

In Bolivia, the Laguna Kenko dam failure destroyed 47 homes and killed two people. It held waste from a closed tin mine, one that had resumed processing without sufficient re-engineering of its legacy infrastructure. In Zambia, tailings dams leaked acid and heavy metals into major rivers, leaving 700,000 people without potable water and decimating aquatic ecosystems. These tragedies highlight a universal problem: until tailings management is governed by real accountability, transparency, and geotechnical rigor, disasters will continue to strike—especially where the industry cuts corners and governments remain passive.

Tailings dams, unlike mines, do not close. They linger, silently dangerous, for decades. And when they fail, they do so with brutal efficiency. What we build today in haste will stand—or fall—for generations to come. The safest dam is the one that never has to hold such toxic waste in the first place. But where that’s not possible, the next best option is simple: design better, monitor relentlessly, and regulate without compromise.