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Tarbela Dam facts for kids

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Tarbela

Tarbela Dam (Urdu: تربیلا بند) is a large dam on the Indus River in Pakistan. The word derives from the name of the former Tarbela village, one of the larger villages at this site chosen for the dam.

Location

It is located about 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Islamabad, largely in the jurisdiction in the Haripur District of the Hazara Division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

History

The plan for the dam was approved during the regime of the Pakistani dictator and later president General Ayub Khan, in the 1960s. Work went on until its completion in 1974. Many villages were submerged and thousands of people were displaced in the process.

Technical

The dam has a height of 148 m (486 ft) above the river bed. It has a reservoir size of 250 km2 (97 sq mi). This makes it the largest earth filled dam in the world. The dam was completed in 1974. It was built to store water from the Indus River for irrigation and flood control, and for creating hydro-electric power.now tli

Reservoir

The reservoir lake formed by the damming of the Indus here, is Tarbela lake, which is very elongated and spread out over a considerable area. The lake has many channels and is surrounded by wild, high hills and scrub and thorn forests. It is now a place where many species of waterfowl and fish are found.

Tarbela dam
View of lake or reservoir of Tarbela Dam

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See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Presa de Tarbela para niños

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