THE Olive Press’ Jon Clarke went out to the scene of an impending emergency at the Montejaque dam in Malaga.
The century-old feat of engineering has never actually functioned as a work dam, because the designers at the time did not understand that it was built on porous limestone rock.
Underneath the dam runs the Hundadero-Gato system, probably the most extensive cave network in Europe. It acts like a giant sink-hole.
The River Guadares never builds up any volume of water against the dam wall – even in the wettest weather, the water percolates away into the rocks within hours.
But today the dam is miraculously – and perilously – full, indicating that the cave system beneath it is also full. This has never happened before.
Around 200 people, including tourists at the English-run Molino del Santo hotel, were evacuated from the Estacion de Benaojan neighbourhood on Friday.
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