| Submit your comments on this article |
| East Asia |
| Chinese dam starts filling up |
| 2003-06-02 |
| EFL China has begun filling a reservoir for the world's biggest hydroelectric project, blocking the massive Yangtze River. Cascades of white water roared as sluice gates slowly drew shut yesterday on the Three Gorges Dam, China's biggest engineering project since the Great Wall was built more than 2 000 years ago. Nineteen of the 22 gates at the dam in Yichang, in the central province of Hubei, were closed, blocking the flood-prone Yangtze to form what will become a 600km reservoir. Three of the gates remained open to guarantee water flow on the Yangtze during the two weeks it takes to fill the reservoir to 135 metres. Some gates shut several days ago and water levels had already climbed to 106m by yesterday morning. Over the past decade, the project has been bedevilled by corruption and the discovery of hundreds of cracks in the dam. However, officials told the Guangzhou Daily yesterday that the cracks, some tens of metres long, were not a danger. Two weeks to fill the reservoir, I'll set 14 days as the over/under point for dam failure. This is going to be a major disaster, place your bets. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #14 Even if it doesn't cave in today or tomorrow or ten years from now, would you want to live in front of it with the idea that it might hanging over your head? Probably do wonders for property values. Oh, that's right, they're Commies. Sorry. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-06-02 22:10:33 |
| #13 I just can't believe the center of this things is going to hold. I feel sorry for the people who will get killed when this things busts. |
| Posted by: Douglas De Bono 2003-06-02 16:15:36 |
| #12 Here's a few details from other articles: The dam is believed to sit on stable ground, but the land that holds the reservoir is so vulnerable to landslides that tour boat operators point out famous landslide sites along the route to the Three Gorges. Famous dam diaster in Italy (?), landslide caused by increased water pressure, tidal wave over topped dam. Small cracks have already been discovered in the dam's structure. Officials have been arrested for providing construction companies with shoddy materials. And how many were missed or didn't have political connections? The closing of the sluice gates comes after a general inspection of the dam in mid-May revealed that repair work to fix large cracks on the dam's 185 meter-high concrete face was not completely successful. "We found that some of the vertical cracks on the dam that were repaired have reopened, even though we put a great deal of money and effort into the repair work," Pan Jiazheng, an engineer said in a speech following the end of the inspection. Can't delay, would lose face. The dam's flood control capabilities could come under scrutiny as early as this summer, with Chinese meteorologists predicting a heavier than normal rainy season along the river below the dam. The State Meteorological Bureau says rainfall in the Dongting and Poyang lake areas downstream of the dam is likely to be 20 percent greater than normal this summer. "It's true that in the decade since we started building the dam, we have experienced many types of floods, but this year floods will be really serious," Pan said. Worst case is coming sooner than later. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-06-02 14:49:43 |
| #11 There is also the possibility that the cracks are due to bad curing of the huge amounts of concrete poured. Internal heating from the chemical reaction as the concrete sets - or doesn't, as the case may be. They had the same problems, on a smaller scale, with the Hoover Dam. |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-06-02 14:37:20 |
| #10 There are cracks and then there are cracks. Frank G., is it possible that there is a concrete fascia that is cracking? A non-structural but visible portion of the dam. Here's a decent summary of the project. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-06-02 14:12:51 |
| #9 Nobody, but nobody, screws-up like a communist. But then again, nobody does big like a communist, either. You're just wishful thinking. Don't hold your breath till it happens. |
| Posted by: Scott 2003-06-02 14:09:29 |
| #8 As a civil engineer, I find it disturbing that it's cracking already (possibly poor concrete QC), as well as the fact (found on PBS article) that it will hold a trillion gallons of water yet it's designed for only a 7.0 Richter scale Quake. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-06-02 13:37:24 |
| #7 I'm not so sure that tens-of-thousands is enough. With their population, it's like the U.S. government killing dozens. Now, hundreds-of-thousands, maybe. I think I'd rather see a bad government in China, than a coupled of hundred-thousand dead. However, If they could figure out a way to re-route the river, and make it flood the Korean Peninsula..... |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2003-06-02 13:22:08 |
| #6 The two biggest disasters in history were floods of the Yangtze, killing some 1.75M between them. There's a lot of flood plains below Three Gorges, and much of that is actually below the level of the Yangtze. If the dam were to fail while the river were already near flood stage, the results would be absolutely catastrophic. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-06-02 13:21:09 |
| #5 I believe I'll take the under. Many dam collapses have happened during initial fill. Cracks open as pressure increases, water finds its way under or around the dam through fault lines, etc. In China, no one will have the guts to stop the fill, that would admit they made a mistake. Just look at SARS. A big enough disaster killing tens of thousands might be enough to bring down the government. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-06-02 12:49:09 |
| #4 If the ChiComs were smart, they would put up webcams on that thing. I know I'd pay to see it collapse live. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2003-06-02 11:57:02 |
| #3 I'll take the over, 2 months is my guess. How can these clowns build a dam that has 'hundreds of cracks' in it? This will be on the History Channel's 'Great Disasters' (or whatever the name of it is) series soon enough. Reminds me of my favorite line from Casino - "That guy Paulie - he could f*** up a cup of coffee". |
| Posted by: Raj 2003-06-02 11:01:06 |
| #2 from http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=411236 "Yet many still fear the dam will be an environmental catastrophe. "Decades of accumulated trash from villages, hospitals and cemeteries, highly toxic waste material from factories and the corpses of millions of poisoned rats are all still there," said Dai Qing, an environmentalist. The government says it has cleared four million tons of household, industrial and sewage waste, as well as the rubble from demolishing 12 million square metres of housing. It plans to invest £3bn in hundreds of sewage and waste disposal plants, but all the pollution from Chongqing and other industrial cities still goes straight into the Yangtze, making its water so poisonous that no one dares drink it or use it for agriculture. If nothing is done, environmentalists warn, the Three Gorges could turn from an engineering marvel into a giant cesspit, filled with sediment washed down from the deforested slopes of Tibet's great mountains. " I linked from plastic.com - lots of dam news (pun intended). I think it'll bust sometime next year. |
| Posted by: FormerLiberal 2003-06-02 10:29:37 |
| #1 Anybody interested in some high ground? |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-06-02 09:37:16 |