Beijing Admits to 'Urgent' Problems with Three Gorges Dam

reply to post by SLAYER69


I've updated it with an even better map showing the precise population and the huge swath of people affected if this dam breaks lose.

Its crazy if you think about it. The dams probably so heavy that the land its wresting its weight on is sinking right ? Or can't hold its weight up.

One day it could all collapse into a huge sink hole and or bring the bearing land on each side of the dam with it!.

We have to hope this doesn't happen when you look at the maps and all the people down stream it doesn't look good..

What would the water bee like going downstream a giant 100ft wall of water? that doesn't stop Not a Wave of WATER An entire! Constant Stream!

Oh and Btw S & F'd for this great thread i thank you for brining this to attentioN!!

Perhaps the Area where they built it wasn't the safest but it was the best for the most output of power i would assume thats why they built it in the spot they did.

I am no expert when it comes to China's engineering and quality control but, if their construction is anything like their exports, than I would expect failure in a 3 year time frame. Joking....only time will tell

why don't they just build another walll in front of the original one so......
when it fails the new wall takes the load?

wouldn't be the first time

en.wikipedia.org...

www.itsnature.org...

170 000 - 250 000 estimated deaths!


if three gorges went and barring absurd luck, the death toll might be in the double digit millions. safe power, d'uh. anyway, all these dams are single points of failure if you look at it that way, so what do people really expect?

if the risk is too great, the reservoir will have to be drained... good luck with that.

reply to post by guessing


Wouldn't work. The second wall would have to be a few magnitudes large than the first to accomodate for the momentum.

Spot was chosen to build the smallest dam that would provide the largest payback.

They considered flood areas as well.

I don't think the engineering of the dam itself is faulty. China did have engineers from around the world provide input. I do, however, question the initial geological study. They should have picked up the 'ground shift' problems during their analysis. These can be easily (althought costly) fixed prior to the structure being built.

This whole problem could of course stem from pride. China was having large scale shortages for many different building products during its construction (ie: steel, concrete, wood, etc). All of which would have been used in this project.

Makes you wonder if the contractors cut some corners to 'save face'?

I sure hope not.

As for fixing the dam in place. Possible, but it would depend on the exact nature of the problem. If the problem is from the dam itself, the could reinforce with butress' along the low side. However, that wouldn't cover the ground shift areas.

If the problem is the ground shift, they could have a major issue. Any attempt to fix it, could in fact weaken the ground enough to allow for a full collapse.

All in all, one terrible situation that could have likely been avoided.

Excellent thread aside from the America hater. I think the Chinese built this thing to appease the global warmers. They spew more c02 then anybody so now they can say hey lookie here at this big hydro dam we put up fellers. I mean hey who really cares about the pollution and all the thousands who were forced out of their homes. Global warmers surely don't. This thing is bad news ready to happen and I've felt this way since I first heard about this project. Can't contain one of the worlds biggest rivers. They've tried for a hundred years to control the Miss and she's mad this year. The flooding while tragic at times is a necessary evil. Brings the minerals to enrich the farmland to grow crops. Of course nowdays with all the crap dumped into the rivers who knows????

reply to post by chr0naut


There was a prophecy, but not sure where. I remember it from years ago. If fact there were two, One related to a disaster at the dam, not completely damaged, and it would mainly effect an area of logging and trees where a large number of people would die. If I remember well it was not this that was the important event, it was a precursor to a much bigger event/s that was going to happen a short time afterwards in the world.

The other was that the dam would allow the yellow race (no offence intended), from China to cross the river to invade other countries.

I cannot verify but someone may have more information on this?

reply to post by Trublbrwing


As you said - we ae short timers here. Dinosaurs lasted much longer as they did not destroy everything around them (maybe they did eat too much - smile - but ...). Man has a death wish -- we go for bigger, more, more more of everything ---that in turn takes all from us.

reply to post by guessing


Not good -- now you have a huge force hitting another big structure, knocking that down, causing more debris to flow into the people. ---- ouch!

reply to post by peck420



unless the water was slowly released from the first. instead of waiting for the first to just fail.


then it would just be like a normal dam wall....

Originally posted by SLAYER69
reply to post by Lil Drummerboy

 

Well one wonders if this is the type of construction going on in China I would seriously worry about the larger projects such as the Three Gorges Dam. Never mind some of them shiny new skyscrapers

Fully agree,.
The Chinese, though absolutely full of wisdom to the past,. only seems to cut corners when it comes to
anything with the future.

If it's too much dam in one place, then they probably have no other option now than to build more dams.

It does make you wonder about planned depopulation and such...they've got the money and they've got the people to build more dams so there is no excuse if they don't even try.

But hubris really does come into play. Check out the story of the 1889 Johnstown flood.

en.wikipedia.org...

Short version: the 'South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club' built themselves a little dam for a little fishing and boating. Members of the club included the Mellons, basically all the Pittsburgh money(it's ~1hour east of Pittsburgh by car now and they had lots of train infrastructure back then as well), Pennsylvania industrialists (PA was huge huge money and very busy with heavy industry back then, steel, coal, oil, etc).

Johnstown itself is like a little bowl among some mountainous territory...

...heavy rains made the crappy dam fail and it killed ~2200 people.

There's a great documentary on it and some good books as well. You'd learn a bunch about all that turn of the 20th century Pennsylvania money.

Woo hoo-big surprise. The Chinese did this on purpose for population control. They can wipe out millions of their own people by "accident" without anyone giving them crap about human rights. So what if the damn somehow "breaks"

Thought I'd add this free hour long PBS documentary to the thread for people who aren't familiar with the dam. I wouldn't have known about it if I didn't come across this thread. This documentary was released in 2000 I believe, so it was before the dam was finished.

"Great Wall Across the Yangtze"

"Two million Chinese are displaced by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River."

reply to post by Pipebomb24875


I remember watching the video.
Very interesting, thanks for posting it here.

It makes me nervous how this showed up as a lead CNN story today -- like someone wants to get the story out there on MSM and save face by admitting there's a problem in a highly visible way before a disaster occurs. 'Can't help thinking that something must be imminent.

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by bsbray11
I do find it very ironic though that you are comparing China to a child when, if anything, the US is the child compared to China. They invented gunpowder before we were even a twinkle in Great Britain's eyes.

Giving the present Chinese credit for those ancient achievements is like giving the present day Egyptian Government credit for building the great Pyramid or Downing street credit for Stonehenge.

Their 55+ years young Government are newcomers to modern construction technique no matter how you slice it.

I agree. US is very experienced in the modern construction techniques. I also agree that construction projects gone bad (shoddy) are to be seen everywhere. But I still feel that the civil engineering laws and rules are not that stringent in China as they are in US when it comes to massive development efforts such as the Three Gorges Dam.

Its the pre-project study and homework that was not done properly it seems. The problems are evident now. Just have to wait and see unless they decide to fix the issue miraculously by diverting the water to another outlet and reducing the level.