Webinar: The 1979 Machhu Dam Disaster: Social Origins and Social Consequences

This event qualifies for 2 PDH

Join us on June 9, from 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm Eastern for The 1979 Machhu Dam Disaster: Social Origins and Social Consequences. In this webinar, Utpal Sandesara and Tom Wooten will discuss their book “No One Had a Tongue to Speak: The Untold Story of One of History’s Deadliest Floods.” The course will cover the social causes and social consequences of the 1979 failure of the Machhu Dam-II in Gujarat, India. The flood wiped out dozens of villages and the industrial city of Morbi, killing at least 5,000 people. The course will cover the technical causes of the dam failure, the managerial problems that allowed design flaws to go unchecked, and the many ways the flood upended lives in the Machhu River Valley.

Five Learning Objectives of This Course:

Dam collapses can have terrible social consequences
Dam collapses also have social causes: there is no such thing as a “natural" disaster
This disaster, like most disasters, emerged not from one mistake but from a cascade of them
Covering up causes of engineering disasters does the profession and the public a disservice
The case shows how crucial it is to take dams seriously: ASDSO members do vital work

Speaker and Presenter Information

Utpal Sandesara

UCLA
Resident in Internal Medicine

Utpal Sandesara is a doctor in the Internal Medicine Residency Program at UCLA. He holds an MD and a PhD in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is co-author, with Tom Wooten, of the book “No One Had a Tongue to Speak: The Untold Story of One of History's Deadliest Floods." His anthropology dissertation examines how families in India make decisions about sex-selective abortion, and he has also conducted research about the challenges of public health system integration.

Tom Wooten
Harvard University Department of Sociology
PhD Student

Tom Wooten is a doctoral student in sociology at Harvard University. He is co-author, with Utpal Sandesara, of the book “No One Had a Tongue to Speak: The Untold Story of One of History's Deadliest Floods." His sociology dissertation is a study of the transition to college for low-income students in New Orleans.

Relevant Government Agencies

Army, Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Energy, Dept of Homeland Security, Dept of the Interior, Dept of State, Other Federal Agencies, State Government, City Government, Municipal Government, FEMA, Federal Government, State & Local Government, Foreign Governments/Agencies