Shadi Kaur Dam (also "Shadikor") is a dam that impounds the Shadi Kaur river about north of Pasni in Balochistan province of Pakistan. The dam, long, and 35 metres high, was constructed in 2003 at a cost of 45 million rupees ($758,853) to provide irrigation for nearby farms.
2005 Disaster
On February 10, 2005, the dam burst due to heavy flooding caused by more than two weeks of heavy rainfall, resulting in the deaths of about 70 villagers due to drowning; the floods washed bodies into the Arabian Sea. Emergency search and rescue operations by the Pakistani military saved the lives of approximately 1,200 people. At least five villages were totally submerged, including Pasni and Ormara. The dam burst in the aftermath of Pakistan's heaviest rainfalls and snowfalls in sixteen years. The waters swept away bridges on the Baluchistan to Karachi highway, and closed the Karakoram Highway temporarily.
Another nearby reservoir at Akra Kaur, Gwadar, was overflowing at the same time, and after the Shadi Kaur accident, many villages were evacuated. Many small earthen dams built by the local population on self-help basis, also overflowed.
Researchers blame the accident on design deficiency, including the lack of a spillway. Its construction was then inaugurated in 2016 by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, with a storage capacity of 37,000 acre-feet (45,600,000 cubic metres) across an area of 6,650 acres (27 sq. km), for a total cost of Rs7.9bn, It now features a spillway.