The Aswan Dam, Egypt, is one of the most important engineering mega constructions of the 20th century. It was built to alleviate the annual floods and occasional droughts experienced by Egypt. It was built on January 11, 1960, and completed on July 21, 1970.
At present it is responsible for generating a large part of the energy consumed in Egypt. So it becomes a point of visit for tourists touring Aswan.
The Aswan High Dam in Egypt measures a staggering 3,600 meters in length and 111 meters in height. Another impressive measurement is the 980-meter-wide base. You will be surprised to learn that it was also built with 43 million cubic meters of stone.
It is thanks to its construction that Lake Nesser, which is 500 kilometers long and up to 16 kilometers wide, originated. Because it also occupies a total of 6,000 square kilometers of water. Which makes it the largest man-made lake in the world.
President Gamal Abdel Nasser was responsible for promoting its construction and bringing the project to a successful conclusion. He showed great political maneuvering skills during the Cold War. When the Americans withdrew their initial support for the dam project, he was able to reconcile interests with the Soviet Union, which sponsored a third of the total cost of the project, in addition to providing technical and constructive advice to complete the dam.
Before reaching the inside of the dam on the right, there is a monument in the shape of the lotus flower, it was built as a building of Egyptian-Soviet friendship and cooperation, surrounded by a small lake, on the walls of the building there are reliefs of a text vi lingual in Arabic and Russian language declaring the Soviet-Egyptian friendship.
The international report confirmed that the High Dam surpassed the 122 giant projects in the world.
Due to the benefits it has brought to Egyptians, it provided Egypt with its strategic balance in water after the Nile water was one of the most famous floods lost in vain in the Mediterranean.
The High Dam is 3600 m long with a material volume of 43 million m³. At maximum capacity, it can discharge 11,000 m³ of water per second.
It has additional emergency spillways for a volume of 5000 m³.
There is a reservoir, called Lake Nasser, 480 km long and 16 km at its widest point, with a surface area of 6,000 km² and containing between 150 and 165 km³ of water. It flooded a large part of lower Nubia and more than 90,000 people were displaced.
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