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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China's Three Gorges on Alert After Floods Kill 76 |
| 2004-09-07 |
Sep 6, 9:44 PM (ET) China has put the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydro-electric project, on flood alert, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday after rain and mudslides killed 76 in areas to the west. Water levels at hydrological stations were above "warning levels" and rising and navigation on the giant reservoir above the dam had been halted for the first ever, it said. Southwestern Chongqing municipality and central Hubei province, on the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River, had put all departments on flood alert, increased patrols along dams of the river and reinforced reservoirs. Engineers blocked the Yangtze at the Three Gorges Dam in June last year, filling the reservoir for a $25 billion project that is a point of national pride in a country desperate for power but which critics fear will become an environmental nightmare. Hundreds of thousands of people have been relocated from the area around the reservoir, which has swallowed villages, cities, factories and hospitals as well as some archaeological treasures. The dam is in Hubei province, to the east of Sichuan province and Chongqing. It was the first time since the reservoir opened to tourist and cargo traffic last July that it has been closed. The central government has allocated 40 million yuan ($4.82 million) for emergency funds to flood-stricken areas in Sichuan and Chongqing after the most destructive rain storm this year. According to the latest figures released by local flood control offices, the death toll from floods in Sichuan and Chongqing is at least 76 with 27 missing. More than 130,000 people had been evacuated from their homes. The storm hit northeastern parts of Sichuan and Chongqing on Thursday and rain is predicted to continue through Tuesday. Good - the secret weather ray is working fine. You can turn it off, now. Save it for that other rainy day, heh. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #9 Here is the website of Three gorges Dam probe. I get a newsletter from them once a week. It is definitely the ultimate Communist Megaproject. Lots of issues raised, and many people have been severely impacted by the construction of the dam, and critics have not fared so well, either. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-09-07 10:07:09 PM |
| #8 Yeah... Frank, I remembered reading that bit about the fly ash.... but didn't even the Soviet Union over-engineer dams and bridges? Just to cover this sort of endemic sponging at the margins? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-09-07 6:25:34 PM |
| #7 Hey, what's a little fly-ash between friends 'eh? heh heh - good memory, Ship. Alaska Paul and I have been going back and forth on when, not if, this piece of shit will bust. The flyash content was many times higher than we permit in structural concrete, but did keep the costs down....typical commie crap© |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-09-07 11:51:48 AM |
| #6 Cracks in the face already? Just how many millions of people will get washed away when this sucker lets loose? Take the Johnstown PA dam disaster and multiply by say 1,000 or 10,000. |
| Posted by: Craig 2004-09-07 11:36:50 AM |
| #5 Hey, what's a little fly-ash between friends 'eh? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-09-07 10:20:01 AM |
| #4 SH: I pray to God that the Chinese are better engineers than I think they are. I don't think the problem is the quality of the engineers. It's the quality of the construction. Most of these Chinese billionaires you hear about made their money from government contracts. And the primary method for making that much money from government contracts is to cut corners and to make things below specs - using shoddy (and cheaper) construction materials and methods to save money, which directly lines the contractors' pockets. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-09-07 9:59:42 AM |
| #3 The dam is typical Commie crap--it's the "biggest" and the shittiest. Hope the poor slobs downriver from it know how to swim. |
| Posted by: GreatestJeneration 2004-09-07 3:32:27 AM |
| #2 I pray to God that the Chinese are better engineers than I think they are. If the dam goes, the SARs cover-up will look like a misdemeanor in comparison. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-09-07 3:16:36 AM |
| #1 Shuckey darn! You mean those cracks in the dam face will do what Taiwan has been planning on anyway?!? "China says that 80 cracks have appeared in the Three Gorges dam, only days after the huge reservoir behind it was filled for the first time ... "If water enters these cracks, there could be negative effects, so we are fixing them very carefully," Pan Jiazhong, head of the dam's inspection group, said yesterday." |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-09-07 2:38:58 AM |