21 May to 3 June 2018

On 18 May 2018, the French Committee for Dams & Reservoirs (CFBR) asked its members to take part in an emergency international assessment mission on a large dam (>200m high) at risk in Colombia, where more than 25,000 people had been displaced to safer areas and 130,000 inhabitants were at risk.

The Colombian authorities appealed for international aid from the UN and the European Union.

The ERCC, the European crisis management cell, then relayed the request in France to the Crisis Management Operational Centre (COGIC, Ministry of the Interior) and the Ministerial Monitoring and Alert Centre (CMVOA, Ministry of the Environment).

Claudio Carvajal was welcomed in Medellín on 21 May by the local United Nations team in charge of logistics and security, on the instructions and express coordination of INRAE, and at the expense of the European Union.

A team of four experts was put together by the United Nations Office for the Environment (UNOE).

These experts proposed an analysis and a series of recommendations that will be taken into account in the project’s stabilisation processes (specialists in dams, hydroelectric design, geotechnics and geology).

Claudio Carvajal’s work was greatly appreciated. It should be pointed out that he was supported in his modelling work by his research colleagues back in France.