China 3 Gorges Dam Near Collasp

The second-highest rainfall that’s swamped China in more than a half-century has fueled new questions about the world’s biggest hydroelectric facility, billed as helping to tame floodwaters. Since last month, at least 141 people have died and around 28,000 homes have been damaged in the Yangtze River region, affecting virtually all of mainland China. Vice Minister of Emergency Management Zheng Guoguang told reporters on Monday that the Yangtze, Asia’s longest river, and parts of its watershed have seen the second-highest rainfall since 1961 over the past six months. But after weeks of devastating flooding, questions are being raised about the Three Gorges Dam’s impact on Yangtze floods and if the massive structure itself may be at risk.

CHINA BRACES FOR MORE STORMS AFTER FLOODS LEAVE 121 DEAD OR MISSING THIS YEAR

“One of the major justifications for the Three Gorges Dam was flood control, but less than 20 years after its completion we have the highest floodwater in recorded history,” David Shankman, a geographer with the University of Alabama who studies Chinese floods, told Reuters. “The fact is that it cannot prevent these severe events.”

The Three Gorges dam is discharging flood. Yichang City, Hubei Province, China, July 2. The dam has come under new scrutiny after devastating flooding over the past few weeks. (Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

The Three Gorges Dam was completed officially in 2006. Its power operation went online in 2012, and it is one of China’s most expensive and questionable developmental projects. Some 1.4 million people had to be resettled as a result of the huge project on the Yangtze River.

In this aerial photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a village is flooded in Sanjiao Township of the Yongxiu County in eastern China’s Jiangxi Province  July 13. (Zhang Haobo/Xinhua via AP)

The dam also was touted as the best way to end centuries of flooding along the Yangtze and provide power for China’s industrial boom. But some geologists contended that damming up too much water in the reservoir carried a heightened risk of earthquakes and prolonged damage to the river’s ecology.In 2012, the Ministry of Land Resources said the number of landslides and other disasters around the reservoir had increased 70 percent after the water level in the $23 billion project rose to its maximum in 2010. Critics of the project, like Chinese geologist Fan Xiao, have said that Three Gorges and other major dam projects may make flooding worse by altering the flow of sedimentation down the river. He told Reuters that at Three Gorges, the storage capacity amounts to less than 9 percent of average floodwaters. “It can only partially and temporarily intercept the upstream floods, and is powerless to help with floods caused by heavy rainfall in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River,” he said.Damage from this season’s floods has been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, further pressuring an economy deeply impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Hubei province, through which the Yangtze flows, is known for its numerous lakes and rivers and is under particular threat. The province’s capital Wuhan was the epicenter of China’s coronavirus outbreak. On Friday, a resident in Wuhan south of the dam posted a video showing that the Yangtze River was well above average, even though it hadn’t rained recently, the Nikki Asian Review reported. Residents in the Yangtze River basin in recent weeks have expressed concerns over the ability of the massive dam to handle more heavy rain, even though authorities have been releasing floodwater from the structure.

State media said last week that since June 29, the outflow of the Three Gorges Dam has been controlled at an average daily rate of 35,000 cubic meters per second, reducing up to 30 percent of the Yangtze’s peak discharge. CGTN claimed that it “effectively relieved the pressure of flood control on the middle and lower reaches of the river.” Chinese state media dismissed concerns as being “hyped by some Western media,” with the Global Times claiming the dam is able to meet a  “once-in-a-millennium” water level at 175 meters or flow up to 70,000 cubic meters per second. The company running the Three Gorges Project said on Saturday that downstream water discharges had been halved since July 6, “effectively reducing the speed and extent of water level rises on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze.” The total amount of stored floodwater had now reached 88 percent of the reservoir’s total capacity, it added. But critics of the controversial project are still skeptical. “With hindsight, I think that all those experts who opposed the building of the Three Gorges were right,” Zhang Jianping, an activist in Jiangsu, said on Radio Free Asia. “Since it was built, it has never played a role in preventing flooding or droughts, like we thought it would back then.” Nick Note: Excuse Me I am very skeptical. If they would lie about the coronavirus they sure as hell will lie about this 30 year boondoggle. The damn from hell. I can tell you for a fact a lot of the concrete was below spec. I have a friend at the (since disappeared) time who told me the cement was to wet. AND that the cement was bad because it was in the trucks to long because they could not organize the schedule of the trucks so they could pump the concrete in a timely manner. I was also told that delays and form blowouts meant that in many places the pour was not continuous. Pouring new concrete on dried concrete is a big no no. I have been around several mega projects and the fuck ups. The untold truth is the world trade center would still be standing if they had poured a meter of concrete around the structural beams. The spec was changed when they paid off the inspectors who allowed a asbestos fire (ha ha ha ) proof wrap to be used instead. I was in Houston Texas when the seals blew out on the space shuttle. The NASA engineer Allan McDonald was screaming to abort the takeoff because it got to cold the night before the launch and the seals shrunk. he was not listened to. he was discredited and his life was destroyed because he was right and the bosses would not listen to him and abort the launch. I the ultimate survivor had my group short the shit out or Morton Thiokol and made a nice profit. As a foot note I left Houston and the US at that times in disgust.

 

During NASA Langley’s October Colloquium, Allan McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, who tried to avert the Challenger tragedy from where he stood at the Launch Control Center. As he fought to draw attention to the real reasons behind the disaster, he experienced retribution by individuals from NASA and his employer, Morton Thiokol, Inc., makers of the Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters.  McDonald, the director of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor Project for the engineering contractor Morton Thiokol, was concerned that below-freezing temperatures might impact the integrity of the solid rockets’ O-rings.  He would soon learn that his worst fears had come true. As he watched the Challenger disintegrate at the Launch Control Center that cold, sunny January morning, he was baffled. He had predicted that if the O-rings were to fail, the rockets would explode

The reason i am telling you all this is because we are about to see another colossal failure. this time in will not affect 6 people or 30,000 or  few million but billions. And that is the coronavirus vaccine scam. Go ahead and be stupid. stupid people end up destroying their lives and the fools around them that listen to them! You have been warned!!!!