A dam holding alumina, a chemical compound used in the production of aluminum, burst, but reportedly only 2% of the contained substance escaped. It’s difficult to imagine how this could be so considering that the dam appears to have failed catastrophically, at a corner, where you would least expect it to; but evidently alumina is not very fluid.

Two percent can’t be very much, right? For a sense of scale, try to find the heavy equipment in this photo.

Looks like a nice thick concrete dam. Think about this one if anyone wants to contain toxic by-product in fail safe dams near you.