Dam in Norway partially bursts after days of heavy rain, flooding and evacuations

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A dam in southern Norway partially burst Wednesday following days of heavy rain that triggered landslides and flooding in the mountainous region and forced downstream communities to evacuate, officials said.

Authorities initially considered blowing up part of the dam at the Braskereidfoss hydroelectric power plant on the Glåma, Norway’s longest and most voluminous river. The idea was to prevent communities downstream from being inundated by using a limited, controlled blast to release pressure on the dam.

But that proposal was scrapped after water later broke through the structure, police spokesman Fredrik Thomson told reporters.

“The damage from a possible explosion of the concrete plant would be so great that it would serve no purpose,” Thompson said.

Now officials are hopeful that they will see a gradual, even leveling of the water, Thompson said.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre warned that flooding would continue to be a threat as excess water flows downstream.

“This is by no means over,” he said. “It could be the highest water level in 50 years or more.”

The dam’s generators stopped working early Wednesday after a power grid failure, plant operator Hafslund Eco said in a statement.

An automatic system that should have opened the floodgates to release water failed.

Rapidly rising water then spilled over the dam and into the power station itself, which caused major damage, officials said.

Huge volumes of water were pouring over the western parts of the dam, Thomson said.

The water ripped apart a two-lane road and fences that ran across the top of the dam.

Per Storm-Mathisen, a spokesman for the power station operator, told the Norwegian news agency NTB that the water diversion seemed to be “going well.”