Assessment of damage for dam break incident in Lao PDR using SAR data

Among various human-made hazards, failure of dam is common and a terrible hazard. This paper represents the impact of flood resulting from dam failure of Saddle Dam D in Champasak Province of Lao People's Democratic Republic on 23 July 2018. A synergetic approach was adopted for estimation of the lateral extent of floodwater and flood depth. Useful information for disaster mapping planning is obtained by overlapping the flood map. Exposure analysis study has been done on three major affected villages, considering three exposures as population, agricultural damage and infrastructure damage. The results revealed that before and after dam break, there is a difference of 18.84 km(2) in the area of reservoir, and in downstream, there is increase in the inundated area of approximately 44.70 km(2). Approximately 10% of the population of Sanamxay District is affected and approximately 56 km roads, 600 buildings and 33 km(2) cropland areas were exposed to the flood.