Dolgarrog dam disaster memorial citation

Image: © Richard Hoare Taken: 8 Nov 2017

The night of 2 November 1925 was dark and stormy in North Wales. The dam at Llyn Eigiau, up in the mountains west of Dolgarrog, fractured under stress and released a large volume of water down the valley to Coedty reservoir. At 9pm Coedty dam burst with an almighty roar, cascading millions of gallons of water and thousands of tons of Ice Age boulders down a narrow gorge onto the unsuspecting villagers of Dolgarrog. By the following day the death toll was 10 adults and six children. The nearby Aluminium Corporation factory (now the site of Surf Snowdonia ) was seriously flooded but the 200 or so workers there were all successfully rescued. The death toll might have been higher had not most of the villagers been attending a cinema show in the community hall on higher ground. Many of the boulders some weighing up to 500 tons lie in situ. In 2017 Dolgarrog Community Council received a grant of £10,000 from the Lottery Fund Sharing Heritage programme. Money has been spent on new information boards interpreting the history and there will be a permanent museum / exhibition in a room at the Dolgarrog Community Centre.

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