Chinooks placed 228,000 kilograms of rubble to plug Maastricht dam; More set for Sunday

Two Chinook helicopters dropped a total of 228,000 kilograms of rocks into the 50-meter-wide break in a spillway dam in Maastricht on Saturday. A new temporary dam made of rubble stone near the breach is also taking shape, the Zuid-Limburg regional emergency services office announced on Saturday evening.

Inmiddels zijn er 32 netten vol met breuksteen “ gedropt”. Dit om onze collega’s van @Rijkswaterstaat @RWS_ZN te ondersteunen bij het herstellen van de overlaatdam in @uitMaastricht . pic.twitter.com/hLnT3hYsaU

— DHC Luchtmacht (@dhcluchtmacht) January 6, 2024

The helicopters flew a total of 57 times on Saturday bringing heavy boulders in nets to the broken dam. Each net contained a weight of 4,000 kilograms. The first nets became visible above the water surface, according to the regional safety office. Rijkswaterstaat expects to be able to drop the same amount of stones on Sunday, the infrastructure agency said.

The Chinooks will resume their work on Sunday morning. If all goes well, the hole in the dam will be sufficiently filled by Sunday afternoon, the safety office said. Rijkswaterstaat was preparing a new supply of rubble for Sunday. "All available bags from the Netherlands and Belgium are on their way," the safety region said.

The police arrested one person on Saturday for violating the emergency ordinance that applies to the area. According to emergency workers, the suspect was not paying attention to the instructions given by officers.

This emergency ordinance currently was enforced for the entire area where the Chinooks were flying. Some roads were closed to traffic, and drones were not allowed to fly in the area. Only scheduled bus services were allowed through the area.

Construction of an emergency dam also started on Saturday. This is being built a bit upstream from the broken dam. The defense contractor and military personnel will resume this work Sunday morning. "Our contractor will not continue working on the emergency dam tonight," said a spokesperson for Rijkswaterstaat at the end of Saturday's operations. "We don't want to work with artificial light," she said.

The regional emergency services office was unable to provide a timetable about the completion of the emergency dam. The supply of stones needed for the construction of the dam progressed during the overnight hours into Sunday morning.

The military was also deploying a ferry to bring equipment for the emergency dam to the other side of the Maas. A total of 35 soldiers from the Air Force and Army were deployed for this portion of the operation..