The dam of the coal ash disposal site of Shentou Number 2 Power Plant in Shanxi province, recently suffered a breakage. The dam failure occurred at 1:40am in the early morning of August 16. The breakage was about 100m wide at the top and 50m wide at the bottom. Ash slurry flowed out of the breakage, covering a circular area of about 500m. Most of the affected land had already been alkalized and could not be planted due to previous seepage from the dam. Villagers said that over 40 hectares of land was flooded.