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Locals scramble to higher ground as world's largest dam faces mounting pressure
[9News.com.au] The Three Gorges Dam spans the Yangtze, Asia's longest river, which has become a raging torrent with storm water pouring into the reservoir of the dam at 60 million litres per second on Monday night.On Tuesday morning, dam operator the China Three Gorges Group said water flow into the reservoir fluctuated between 50 million and 60 million litres per second. And the peak flow has not eased, adding more than ten trillion litres to the mega-dam in just 10 days. All arteries leading from the Yangtze River remain deluged by the third big flood this summer. The China Three Gorges Group say they plan to hold as much water in the dam as possible to buy time for cities downstream to build up their defences. According to local reports, the dam's operator has indicated there are 13 days left before the reservoir will fill to the brim. The China Three Gorges Group lifted the dam's floodgates on the weekend to discharge the reservoir to block the expected flood starting from Monday. "Slight deformation" on some peripheral parts of the structure was reported by local media last week. But the China Three Gorges Group said this year's floods were "severe but not unprecedented" and no match for the reinforced concrete structure. Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-07-29 |
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