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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

"Department officials blamed the structure failure on high tides caused by the eclipse...."

That's certainly creative.

Should read "Department officials were ordered to tell BS reason instead of pointing out the most likely reason: shitty quality of structure due bad management trying to save money on maintenance"

Isn't that true though? The sun-moon-earth in a straight line when the moon is near perigee _would_ cause unusually high tides.

It would, but the tidal effect of a perfectly aligned sun/moon would not be much different from the tidal effect of a mostly-aligned sun/moon. It's really just another spring tide, which happens about twice a month.

Plus, the failure didn't even happen during the eclipse. It happened two days earlier, when the moon would have been 20-30 degrees away from the sun's position. That combination happens quite frequently.

The article notes that tides weren't abnormally high, and had reached greater heights at some point in every month of 2017 so far.

Well, it being a total (non-annular) eclipse does mean the moon is relatively close.

Right, but lunar perigee will approximately line up with the sun about twice a year, so that's not unusual either.

plus - even if the tide would be significantly higher during an eclipse - this is something that has to be planned nonetheless ... it's not the first eclipse and its effect as well as its timing can very well be calculated.

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