Abstract: The tailing ponds in our country are not only great in quantity, but also distributed widely, and countless security and eco environmental accidents caused by the tailing ponds not only make a serious threat to the national public security, but also restrict Chinas economic and social development in some ways. Therefore, studies of the mechanism and process of the tailing dam break would be of great significance to the disaster prevention and mitigation for the tailings ponds in China. In this paper, the difference and connection between the tailing dams and the water retaining dams in the mechanism and process of dam break are analyzed and compared, and the characteristics of the tailing dams are summarized in the aspects of dam body form filling ways, and dam material composition and failure mechanism, and the research achievements acquired in recent years are introduced systematically. Deficiency in research is also pointed out, and suggestions for further development in this research field proposed. In short, safety of the tailing dams is still a serious problem in China, and basic theoretical research is relatively weak. In view of the fact that mechanism of the tailing dam break is not clear and too many findings of earth rock dam break are used in the analysis of the tailing dam break, it is necessary to carry out more experiments on the tailing dam break, so as to explore the mechanism of the break fundamentally.