China says their massive dam is not about to burst. Brace yourselves.

Leave a CommentChina says their massive dam is not about to burst. Brace yourselves.Technology

We wrote here and below about the possibility of catastrophic floods in China when their much vaunted Three Gorges Dam (the world’s largest hydroelectric gravity dam) breaks.

In fact they are sacrificing cities in flood tests in an attempt to prevent the dam breaching. Look what happened in this town when they released some water from the dam.

UPDATE August 22, 2020

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is nearing capacity after weeks of record floods in China. Authorities are trying to reassure people the massive structure will hold while evacuating hundreds of thousands. Hundreds have already died.

Heavy rains are inundating China and across the country people are fleeing their homes as the waters rise. However, the massive Three Gorges Dam is what everyone is watching intently. Right now it’s experiencing a new high for inflows, a new high for water level upstream, and a new high for the water level downstream. As it’s China we have no idea whether the shoddily built construction will hold. (See original article below)

And if anyone is only doubt what a collapse would mean – look at this Chinese-made CGI video (I hope the the makers are OK, the CCP hates people to criticize their projects.) This clearly shows major cities like Yichang, Shanghai and Wuhan being obliterated. Wuhan has already flooded from river water.

The floods will also cause disease. The wastewater of 40 cities will flow into the stream and only a few of them have sewage treatment plants.

If the Three Gorges dam blows, it’s what the financial world calls a “Black Swan” event and if it happens the economies of the whole world will be affected as a major industrial and tech center goes offline. For example, Honda has three plants in this area. That would be a massive hit for a major manufacturer.

July article:

(Map Credit: u/BerryBlue_BlueBerry @ Reddit)

The dam was a pet project of the late Premier Li Peng and a huge source of pride to the nation when it blocked and diverted Asia’s largest river, the Yangtze, in 1997. It spans the river in Hubei province, which includes the cities of Shanghai and Wuhan.

Beijing has now admitted that the dam “deformed slightly” after record flooding. Needless to say, the official Xinhua News Agency played down the problem by confessing that some nonstructural, peripheral parts of the dam had buckled. As you can see, the dam has definitely changed. The Chinese authorities attribute the change to the massive rains of 2020. When Western engineers were invited to tour the dam prior to opening they observed that the rebar was not fit for purpose. Their comments led to them being branded “racist.”

If you click through on the Tweet below you will uncover a Treasure Trove of information about the possibility of the breaching of the dam and the unimaginable consequences to China.

How unimaginable? Let’s start here.

@man_integrated
So, let’s divert for a moment to what happens downriver if the Three Gorges Dam fails. A 100m-tall wall of water will rush out at more than 100 km/hr. In 30 minutes, Yichang and its 4 million residents will be engulfed.
Zero+1 hour, Jingzhou and 5.7 million people will be swept away.
Zero+5, the major industrial city of Yueyang (5.5 mil people) will sit 5 meters underwater.
Zero+10 hours, Wuhan (11 mil people) will face flooding of 6-8m in all major industrial and port zones.
Zero+15 hours, Jiujiang (another major PPE hub with 4.7 mil residents) will be hit with several meters of flooding. All cropland and infrastructure will be flooded and damaged.
Zero+24 hours, Shanghai’s neighboring city of Nanjing will see its port crippled.

And more from Hunstman and his amazing think tank.