CN Three Gorges Dam on alert as heavy rain and floods kill 6 in China - What could potentially be one of the worst ecological disaster in human history

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The Three Gorges Dam, China’s largest, is on high alert as floods triggered by torrential rains wreak havoc in the southwestern part of the country.

Record rainfall in Chongqing has caused flooding in a dozen districts and counties since Thursday, raising the water levels in 29 rivers, state news agency Xinhua reported.


Six people have died in the region which has received over 250mm of rain, according to the Chongqing Hydrological Monitoring Station.


An aerial drone showed a township submerged in muddy waters.

Dianjiang county in Chongqing received 269.2mm of rain on Thursday, the highest in a single day ever.

The rains have affected over 40,000 people, forced the evacuation of several areas and damaged 1,800 hectares of crops, CCTV reported.



The rains and subsequent flooding have also disrupted operations at the Chongqing railway station, leading to the suspension of 26 train journeys on Thursday.


The Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters on Thursday raised the flood emergency response to level 3 in the four-tier response system in which level 1 is the most severe.

“As flood preparedness and response enter a critical period, we should strengthen warnings and monitoring and timely evacuate people in areas at risk of geological disasters,” Chongqing’s mayor, Hu Henghua, said on Thursday. “It’s better to be extra careful to prevent any potential losses.”



Authorities are also facing challenges along the Yangtze river basin as the water level in the Three Gorges Dam reservoir has risen to 161.1 metres, the highest ever in July, according to China’s Ministry of Water Resources.

Heavy rainfall is anticipated in the upper reaches of the river over the next 10 days, with a new round of floods expected to flow into the reservoir around 16 July, Changjiang Water Resource Commission said.

A flood with a peak flow of 45,000 cubic metres per second is forecasted to enter the reservoir on Friday, and two other significant water surges are expected in mid-July.

 

[Ghost of Biden]

The Three Gorges has opened the Eleven Spillways as dictated by Celestial Heavens.

It’s funny because in ancient Chinese culture they usually killed the leaders for something as simple as bad weather because they saw Heaven’s Mandate as lost and the Weather God as angry against the leader.

 

[Otterly]

Seems like this damn thing has been collapsing or on the verge of collapse for the past few years.

It’s interesting becasue it’s supposed to be ‘unbteakable’ except of course the Chinese built it. With European engineering oversight but apparently the first section was all to code and by the time they got the last it was the usual Chinese skimping and scamping and less to code. It’s a gravity dam so it’s supposed to be able to withstand a nuclear blast or something, but the concrete is dodgy, and the ground underneath it seems to be actually giving way - it’s built over multiple fault lines
Also it DID fail - not as in ‘total dam break and scouring half of middle china off the map’ but its failed in its purpose which was to ameliorate flooding along the river. There is no decommissioning plan, so it’s just keep patching it up and pray.

if the water actually overtops it, I wonder if it could destabilise it?

 

[COME ON OUT YOU RAPIST]

Seems like this damn thing has been collapsing or on the verge of collapse for the past few years.

That's basically everything in China. The spin "nobody lives in these new cities because there's just not enough people!" is a cope. Chinese themselves are aware that there are basically no standards for building (or at least any actively enforced by the government) and anything that doesn't predate the current government will probably collapse on top of your head.

 

[Alaric the Visigoth]

I personally doubt the dam itself will collapse but if Chinese infrastructure and entire cities are under water every year I think that would start build deep seated resentment in the people towards the CCP government for abandoning them.

 

[Nate Scully 025]

Seems like this damn thing has been collapsing or on the verge of collapse for the past few years.

That’s because it follows the same maxim as most anything potentially world changing: nothing happens… until it does.

More seriously, the dam is a well known piece of shit in a TERRIBLE location for longevity, so even beyond people just hoping for it to crash down and flood a massive swath of land it really is more of a ‘when’, not an ‘if’.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Neocon shills on this site keep promising the Three Gorges Dam will fall ANY DAY NOW but are routinely proven wrong. Won't stop literal CIA-sponsored clickbait outlets like China Uncensored from grifting off of it.

 

[COME ON OUT YOU RAPIST]

I personally doubt the dam itself will collapse but if Chinese infrastructure and entire cities are under water every year I think that would start build deep seated resentment in the people towards the CCP government for abandoning them.

Chinese culture is basically a constant state of poverty and despondence until told to be angry by their leadership.

 

[Alaric the Visigoth]

Chinese culture is basically a constant state of poverty and despondence until told to be angry by their leadership.

Are you not aware of the mandate of heaven? Keeping the people happy is important, we saw that months back when they kept trying to enforce their retarded covid laws.

 

[Not Really Here]

It’s interesting because it’s supposed to be ‘unbreakable’ except of course the Chinese built it.

The problem is in the fact it's the last dam, in a series of dams, built on the river. Upstream are some really shady dams, built in areas known for massive landslides. A catastrophic failure of a dam upstream, would cause all of that impounded water to rush downstream, bringing a massive amount of force, and debris to slam against anything downstream.

 

[COME ON OUT YOU RAPIST]

Are you not aware of the mandate of heaven? Keeping the people happy is important, we saw that months back when they kept trying to enforce their retarded covid laws.

I think tying human leadership to the idea of literal divinity is such a stupid idea that Europe realized it didn't make sense literally thousands of years ago.

 

[Sithis]

up to 400,000,000 people down stream could be killed by the resulting flooding.

With that much of a carbon footprint reduction, maybe the Bongs will be allowed to have gas stoves again

 

[LaxerBRO]

If the 3GD goes, up to 400,000,000 people down stream could be killed by the resulting flooding. More importantly, the CCP would never be able to survive that kind of a disaster. They're barely in control now, but one of their projects kills a third of the population of the country? Xi would be on the next plane to Zurich.

What's the chances of a Red Storm Rising scenario where faced with international turmoil and economic collapse, the start an international conflict with Taiwan and other nations?

 

[Sammich]

if the water actually overtops it, I wonder if it could destabilise it?

Absolutely, if water goes over the top, it fucks up all sort of stability, and the dam is pretty much fucked then. That's how any dam i've ever seen works, so unless this one is built differently, yes.

 

[Corette]

They always hype this up.

Yet nothing ever happens.

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

It would be so amazing if it fails and annihilates everything downstream. If we were smart we'd already have been doing things to increase the chance it fails and causes mass devastation.

Never pass up an opportunity to harm or weaken your enemies.

History is written by the winners so there is no right or wrong in international diplomacy, if you're worried about morals or international law or what God might think you shouldn't be in politics to begin with.

 

[Sugriva]

Wait, there's actually a place in China called "chong ching?"

Lmao

 

[Shiki Ouji]

It would be so amazing if it fails and annihilates everything downstream. If we were smart we'd already have been doing things to increase the chance it fails and causes mass devastation.

Never pass up an opportunity to harm or weaken your enemies. History is written by the winners so there is no right or wrong in international diplomacy, if you're worried about what God might think you shouldn't be in politics to begin with.

This is China we're talking about. They're great at shooting themselves in the foot, we don't need to waste our own nice bullets

 

[mold]

I don't know if it's that I'm just not really that racist or this is just me being a woman but I can't think about the inevitable failure of the 3GD without getting incredibly sad

people on this thread are saying "this was a nothingburger in 2020" but it's the same as the inevitable wildfire that takes out a whole city in the American West - it might happen this year, it might happen in 5 years, it's going to happen within your lifetime.

although actually if the US gets our shit together the potential for even worse wildfire devastation out here than we've already had might be reined in. I don't see any solution to 3GD - like someone else said it's not even just the dam itself, it's the shoddy dams upstream.

also though there's somebody glowy pushing this on pol, there was a recent year that was just as rainy but it wasn't an election year so nobody was yapping about it like they are now

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

This is China we're talking about. They're great at shooting themselves in the foot, we don't need to waste our own nice bullets

I meant more corruption, sabotage but good point. They can't even put up apartment buildings without them toppling over because so many corners were cut.

 

[SirCliveSinclairdabbing]

/pol/ has been trying to destroy this dam with meme power for years

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