UPDATE: Scroll through the Twitter thread #ChinaFloods
See the spectacular and heart-wrenching footage of raging torrents. I have never seen water move on that scale. Why isn’t this on the news?
But NO evacuation #Hefei #Anhui? Like demons in the night #4thReichChina #Chinazi #Xitler #CCP blew up dams & intentionally flooded & killed a city of 60 million PEOPLE to try save richer more important areas. #ChinaFloods #ChinaTruth #HumanitarianCrisis #EnvironmentalDisaster pic.twitter.com/My8pqbZHUY
— Binni (@ExpelChina) July 25, 2020
There is remarkable footage coming out of flooding in China #Chinafloods.
I can’t verify the authenticity, or dates, but it seems likely that terrible things are happening in China. There are shots of levees being deliberately broken to allow waters to flood fields to take the pressure off the dams, and some say the flooding is done without warning and even at night. One shot shows a barge with people on board crashing into bridge pillar and breaking apart. Lord help them. There are reports that the grain crops have been hit hard. “Agriculture wiped out”. There are multiple other reports of thousands going without food or water, with no attempts to rescue them. And there are scores of videos of ferocious torrents raging through streets.
Watching the Three Gorges Dam
According to the Taiwan News this video of a simulation of the collapse of the Three Gorges Dam has gone viral in China, as the rain continues and towns are being sacrificially flooded to reduce the risk of the Three Gorges Dam breaking up. The initial flood will supposedly be 100m in height and moving at 100km and hour. Ten hours later, by the time it reaches the hapless Wuhan the water will “only” be 7m deep.
People are keeping an eye on the #ThreeGorgesDam for news.
On Tuesday, the Chinese financial news site Caijing Lengyan released a controversial video that simulates the devastating flooding that would occur if the vaunted Three Gorges Dam collapsed.
…
According to Chinese government statistics, 45.2 million people have been affected by the floods that have ravaged 27 provinces along the Yangtze River, Huai River, and Yellow River, as well as southern China since the start of June. Many have cast doubt on the integrity of the Three Gorges Dam as it faces the greatest test in its history, while others have questioned the structure’s purported purpose of flood control, given the extensive flooding recently seen both above and below the dam.
This news story below shows satellite footage of the dam wall as somewhat bent, but last time I checked the current satellite image the dam wall looks straight on Google Earth. So either the photo was fake, the largest dam in the world was straightened out, or the CCP have control of the Google Maps.
Hoping the rain eases.
This only shows why you shouldn’t build towns and cities on flood plains.
I tend to think the dam is stronger than a lot of people hoping it will fail think.
180
Nonsense, we are talking about all the flat ground in America.
613
A “flood plain” is, by definition, an area that has flooded in the past and, by extension Will continue to flood in the future.
Perhaps you are thinking of “plains” which are flat for miles on end and which have no obvious “banks”. If we had a heavy fall of 2 inches in one day on an Australian plain it would soak away.
The same fall in an area bound by valley walls and river banks, a flood plain, would be more exciting.
In recent times flood plains have come up the height of the embankment and where valley walls are close it gets worse.
Flood plains that have homes built on them will on day eventually flood again.
The wide open spaces formed at the end of the last ice age were a result of the melting of the huge glacier that covered much of North America at the end of the last Glacial Maximum that was reached about 20,000 years ago.
KK
180
I think you will find that in flat country it all floods. A foot of rain is like that. Or in Houston’s case, four feet.
In any case almost all US cities and towns are built adjacent to rivers and streams, because that is where the flat ground is. Where I live is an extreme case. West Virginia is the only state that is all mountains. Building homes, other buildings and roads on the steep hill sides (I look at a 1000 foot steep slope) is impossible so we all live in the valleys, which flood when it rains real hard. Abondoning the state is not an option. Dams are. I designed a lot that were never built so people keep getting wiped out. It does not have to be this way
51
Ivan was specifically talking about “flood plains” and after linking that, somehow, to the wide open plains of America, we are now told that your experience is in “flood valleys”?
Six foot of rain is Biblical, but locally it takes two years and, apart from “flood plains”, most of it gets away through the waterways.
KK
21
Every house I’ve bought I’ve checked flood maps. If it’s in a flood zone then I don’t buy it. If people ask for my advice I tell them the same thing. Sooner or later you can be guaranteed that there’ll be a flood or a levy or other flood control system will break.
303
*levee
83
I see the red thumbs are out of bed. Nothing better to do, which says it all. Two of them, or the same person on two devices. Your spelling correction is clearly very offensive, three red thumbs on one spelling correction.
53
Floods are seldom caused by dams and levees breaking. They are caused by a lack of dams and levees.
101
David
All this IIRC.
The Yellow River drops its silt lower down and builds up the levees. Somewhere in the 1800’s it broke out in a flood and the new mouth was something like 300 km away from the old one
10
The Yangtze River would often dry up in the summer but leave behind large lakes that would provide all the water necessary for the river and surrounding districts. Because the soil in these lakes was very fertile it was decided to build levees and confine the flow of water in the wet season. The vast fertile areas have been turned into agriculture and home to many villages. Many of the levees have been blasted out, thus flooding the countryside, villages and small towns. The reasoning has been to save Wuhan ( which is already flooded ) at any cost. Not only are there dubious biological laboratories , but also Military research centres . It has been stated by Chinese dam experts that the bedrock under the three gorges dam is “soft” ( which would explain why the wall is not anchored to the bedrock ) and it is cracking thus the wall has moved.
00
I can see up-coming changes to NZ building regulations for human habitations:
– houses must float
– they must be steerable while afloat
– engines to be kept in the basement along with either coal or diesel as initial ballast & fuel.
Note:
This is in no way whatsoever poking fun or humour at the unfolding tragedy in China — and it’s a tragedy on an immense scale. I’m poking some borax at NZ’s lack of civil defence! That’s one department which is funded with the pennies left over after each budget, not with real money/dollars!
56 % of our electricity supply is currently hydro electric. The Chinese experience is of intense interest and some relevance to us. Most of our larger rivers are dammed. With the aluminium smelter in Bluff maybe shutting down, our power supply will become nearly 70% hydro electric.
41
🙂
You’re going well, and hasn’t Jacinderlla just won the election.
00
In my case, i was listening to Bludging On The Blind Side at the time for sporting continuity 🙂
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/bludging-on-the-blindside/success-and-besides/12473302
00
Not yet but the press (the MSM) says she and Labour are a shoo-in when the election is finally held. Maybe we won’t have a coalition government. I don’t mind coalition governments so long as it isn’t green. Coalition governments can’t do much so there isn’t a lot of stupids, it’s all used up in the posturing. But a single party government makes for action instead and that’s scary. Very scary.
The election is about six weeks away — it’s in September and we haven’t gotten through August yet, so patience, Grasshopper.
10
Like a skyscraper has flex to deal with wind loading, dams also have flex built in. The concrete inside the dam is also still green and will take 100 years to fully harden, giving it more flex.
I doubt it will break. The earth dams were breached to ease the pressure on other dams and lower main channel flood levels. It is better to have a controlled breach rather than an uncontrolled one.
The flooding is horrible and without the Three Gorges Dam, probably would have been worse.
It’s still sad to see those people go through this.
Still waiting for AGW to flood Al Gores California water front mansion and Obama Waterfront Manse on Martha’s Vineyard. Hoping for a yuuuge hurricane!
41
A hurricane won’t do it. We need a big rock from space for that sort of damage — like the one which gave us a near miss really recently, the one NASA didn’t notice until it was only a week away. That would have done it.
When there’s nothing left, there’s nothing to worry about …
10
That wipes out more than half of India and Pakistan, the Ganges and the Indus valley and Bangladesh, much of Laos and Vietnam and a lot of Australia’s agriculture! All of Egypt. It’s all they have.
Farms are almost always on the flood plains because of the water, especially if you grow rice, the staple for most of Asia. I would not be surprised if half of the world lives on flood plains and in river valleys and 90% of the agriculture. A lot of the dams in the world were not built for water supply, but mainly for flood mitigation, shipping, commerce generally and to allow permanent dwellings. Otherwise, as in the 5,000 year history of Egypt, when the floods came, you had to leave the Nile valley completely. They built 35 metre mud brick walls around the sacred sites, like holes in the river. It was the British how built the first big dam on the Nile in Egypt, long before the Aswan dam.
The discovery of irrigation and broad acre farming of grasses in near desert areas, allowing expansion in Australia, Ukraine, US and Canada. But the water has to come from somewhere and mountains do something else, create rain and rain creates rivers. Australia lacks high mountains but the rest of the world has plenty. Dams are the great invention and not the problem.
73
Some of the biggest floods, area-wise, in Australia are in outback Queensland
Diamantina River down to Lake Ayre.
40
China Communist Party lies: people die.
This is a fact.
254
Honestly?
17
its on the Interwebs, it must be true
14
Today, profits and poor quality is getting to be the normal way to build. Too many examples of either cheaper quality rebar or steel used or even bad pour of cement will generate weak spots. Over the decades,small cracks can corrode and weaken the steel as seen in some of the bridge collapses. The poor quality cement, if found, never gets chipped out and replaced. Too time consuming and expensive.
So, this structure will eventually collapse, just when is the factor.
Just another place I know I don’t visit or live around.
61
I forgot the biggest problem that could happen…Earthquakes.
62
Hmm, this sounds just like our own Paradise Dam in QLD (brought to you by the ALP) now not fit for purpose so the ALP says don’t let it get anywhere near full so it won’t fall over. So maybe we shouldn’t be too critical of CCP, although I usually am, when our own backyard is in trouble. Maybe we could get Chairman Dan to talk with his Belt & Road mates to help out…. Oh, hang on they might be the people who built the 3 Gorges.
40
Should have used Aussie BHP steel.
122
Is there any?
70
Yes but it’s on the decrease:
https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/steel-production
30
BHP are not in the steel business any more but they do supply iron ore and coking coal to China. BHP were not good at steel making from about 1960 because they gave in to the unions. BHP would have been better if Holmes a Court had been successful in a take over. The merge with Billiton was a mistake amongst many mistakes.
30
I doubt the dam is in danger. Also, one dam, no matter how large can only provide modest flood control. Real control takes a lot of dams, many relatively small, on every major tributary. The US Flood Control Program designed such a system but we were stoped in 1970 by NEPA. It is about a third built so there is a good bit of protection.
140
Three gorges was built because of a monster flood, so it is very likely that the design of the emergency spillway allows for monster floods.
90
When you look at the civil engineering skill on display in China, it is easy to think that the Dam design and construction would be equal to most environmental challenges. Look at any list for bridges, buildings, rail, roads, and space.
It takes a peculiar world view to discount the engineering feats of one group of people, in spite of the evidence in front of your nose.
526
No-one discounts the engineering skills of the Chinese…
… what is the problem, is political interference in getting it done properly.
Another problem is that even with 300 years or so data, this is still just a snippet of geological and climate time.
211
“This is a Climate Change issue” says Greta, “we should stop building dams so people can live in poverty and watch their children starve”. Oh, hang on isn’t that what Davos want, less population. So maybe this is a CC masterstroke.
There has been comment above about engineering skills. Maybe we should be thinking of political interference and corrupt oversight of the build. Remember today’s politician thinks lets do it quick at whatever the cost, get the kudos then when things go wrong in 20 years some other patsy will get the criticism.
70
Most nuclear power plant catastrophes have a link to cost cutting, profiteering? in construction or “extension” of the life of the plant past the end date.
Does this link to the Queensland dam disaster.
10
300 years? And the rest, human habitation on the Yangtze goes back more than 60 thousand years, with at least 2000 years of river transport.
As to political interference, what evidence do you have?
426
Actual measured DATA.. Again, you show you lack of comprehension. !
Are you really SO NAIVE as to think the CCP doesn’t interfere with major projects in China..
WOW !!
210
Where were the villages and hamlets situated? That alone gives you a good baseline. Only a blinkered westerner would think that you only need 300 years. (By the way, some proof of that, and the assertion of political interference would be welcome|
317
Yawn.. You have no actual data, yet again, hey Peter.
When will you learn that your fabrications and feeling mean nothing.
CCP are knee deep in EVERYTHING done in China..
… to pretend otherwise is either a monumental lack of awareness or a deliberate attempt at denial to self-support some crazy communist leaning.
121
Your task is to find some actual measured data on river flows in China that goes back even 100-150 years.
We will be waiting !
Just like we are all still waiting for empirical data that shows warming by atmospheric CO2.
You could try starting here, and read section 2.2
90
Earliest actual real data I have found is 1865…
300 years of actual data? seems I over estimated by a factor of 2.
30
60,000 years? Really?
They would have had to be Homo Neanderthalis, or Homo Robustus or perhaps Peking Man, rather than Sapiens.
20
In case you missed my point: all those species of human being with the single exception of homo sapiens, are now extinct.
20
Just sweep it all away Peter.
10
I met a senior civil engineer involved in design of the 3 Gorges Dam when he visited Ausatralia almost 3 decades ago. He did not speak English but had his own interpreter, an extraordinarily bright civil engineer who happened to be female; probably one of the most impressive young engineers I have met.
Having dealt with Chinese suppliers over the years it becomes apparent that the devil is in the detail. Their engineering and raw materials can be to exacting standards but, without careful quality control over all aspects, there can be serious flaws built in. Every country that has developed a strong manufacturing base have learnt about quality control through hard lessons. Globally right now I place Toyota at the top of the tree. I used to regard Boeing very highly but they have slipped in recent years. Good quality control relies on everyone involved taking care with what they are doing. That takes decades/generations to become systematic.
China does not yet have the ingrained depth of knowledge through their entire workforce to achieve outstanding quality. There have been many spectacular civil engineering failures in China. Up to 10 years ago Chinese design and build projects had difficulty getting construction insurance from global insurers.
You do not need to look hard to find civil engineering failures in China. Here is one example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8123559.stm
All the large western construction firms that source steel fabrications from China have their own employees stationed at the Chinese fabricators.
I have looked at the engineering specification (english version) for a Chinese design and build power station. They are an impressive stack of documents that cover almost every detail. I only saw photos of the finished product and it was evident that things like access stairs were clumsy. They did not use standard castings for handrail connections that are readily available in the west and probably manufactured in China. Instead they had roughly butted round and triangular sections with peeling paint after 12 months of operation.
The design of the 3 Gorges Dam goes back a long way. I suspect the basic concept and high level engineering is good. It is not intended for major flood mitigation. At best it can knock a meter or so off the top of a major flood event. I would need to have seen the dam through its construction to determine if it is fit for purpose.
230
After ten years working on the pacific motorway, I can tell you quality control is a major consideration in Australia, particularly when employing contractors. And yes, the QC was involved in every component, and is still a major part of every contract. But given the expertise of the Chinese engineers, why do you have doubts that they are not aware of the same problems?
216
The simple answer is that I have seen a lot of poor detail on Chinese produced items. To me that shows that Chinese manufacturers are willing to produce substandard work if their client is willing to accept it.
It is impossible to specify every detail and also impossible to achieve quality through inspection of the end product. Ultimately there is reliance on the education, experience and diligence of the workforce to provide the workmanship; care in every detail.
No one knows what they do not know. It takes generations to systematically learn the things that people need to know to do them well.
Anyone involved in major projects would know how important each individual is to the project. As a project manager I always had the authority to approve or remove individuals from a project irrespective of the employment arrangement they worked under. I could not abide union shops where a remote union executive selected the next employee at a a business. The quality of the individuals matter to the quality of the result. I am not sure project managers in China have much say over who is actually working on a project.
At one particular large Australia site I was involved with, I eventually learnt that between 20% and 30% of the workforce were illiterate. Written instruction (guidelines, service manuals etc) was meaningless to those people. Once the site management recognised this problem they started mature age education; that was highly regarded by the workforce. These were not new Australians; just poorly educated kids who ended up working in an industry that was not high on the preferred list of jobs that did not have a basic entrance test. But most Australian employers take it for granted that people they employ who have been educated in Australia can understand written instructions.
Being presented the English version of power station specifications made me wonder how well those requirements are conveyed to the local workforce. The literacy level in China at the time the 3 Gorges Dam began construction was about 70%. Plenty of opportunity for gaps in quality control.
210
And I have seen poor production runs from Japan, Germany, and the USA. illiteracy is just another factor, it does not have to impact on the quality of the finished product. But lets stay with your fiction, it must be a comfort
226
Fiction is your ONLY comfort, Peter.
REALITY scares you, which is why you try so hard to hide from it.
https://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/08/the-grim-reality-of-china-quality-control-qc.html
131
Agree it its just another factor.
But if that is all you got from my response then you have missed the point.
The main factor is WHO works on the project and their prior experience and knowledge of standards. There is a difference between a worker knowing they are taking a shortcut and someone not knowing they are taking a shortcut. I want neither on my project although the latter can be educated if there is time. I want someone who knows how to do something and is able to deliver that every time. I have doubts about that being the case when construction started on the 3 Gorges Dam.
Volvo cars are manufactured in China and they are high quality but there is decades of Swedish engineering and manufacturing knowledge embodied in those cars despite them rolling off a production line in China. Sweden did not just hand over a set of drawings and standards to a China car manufacturer and ask for end products.
A good example of quality issues through lack of knowledge was the use of asbestos in Chery and Great Wall vehicles that were delivered to Australia. Most people in Australia have an appreciation of the issues with asbestos; not so in China in 2012. If an Australia worker finds out they have been exposed to asbestos in the workplace the regulatory authorities are involved.
When the Japanese started building cars in the USA they used their designs, standards and production systems and then educated the US workers. Interesting aspect is that US quality experts taught the Japanese a few decades earlier. The Japanese then refined those processes and stepped it up a notch. US had stopped learning while the Japanese overtook them.
One of the best sheet steel plants I have visited was located in Thailand. However it used Japanese technology and production systems. There were a couple of Japanese engineers on the premises to ensure the quality could be achieved. The technology and production systems have decades of knowledge and experience behind them.
Point is, China is still in the education phase of their industrialisation. They are already the global manufacturing powerhouse for most trivial pursuits. On the other hand I would be a reluctant customer for a nuclear power plant from China. I would like a few more decades of experience before locking in on that one. 3 Gorges Dam was built at the early stage of the current surge into industrialisation and probably has a similar potential for mass destruction as a poorly designed/constructed nuclear power plant.
120
@AndyG55
Quality control is a hindrance to progress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9eXi3RL8q4
10
RIck, we seem to have moved off the point. There is plentiful information, mostly in Chinese about the dam, its design, its expected life, and its performance to date. Your critique, while important, does not invalidate the fact that the dam is performing as it should.
33
From this report it sounds as though SO LONG AS they got the QC correct, the dam should be perfectly safe.
30
In what capacity, PF? From personal experience there are parts of the Beenleigh section that I worked on that showed civil engineering skills were not very lateral thinking to come up with better solutions to build a road over marine mud. Surely, you weren’t in charge of design?
11
Road kill harvester I’d wager, up at the crack of dawn in the hope of warm meat.
10
10 years.
That’s a lot of roads to sweep.
00
Boy, have I got a building for you Peter!
00
Youtube:
Epic Chinese Construction Fail in Beijing, China // Quality Control in China is a Crapshoot
20
I invented designed and manufactured my own range of turf machinery for about 40 years. My daughter carried on after I retired selling the tines and the odd spare part.
The tines for my machines and for many American machines she has made in china she went thru the process of sample testing and rejecting until they got it right.These tines and blades are proven by the customers to be better than their American counterpart. The Chinese can make quality products they get away with lesser if they can.
40
Thanks for that outline.
20
Oh, yes. Their skill at earthquake proofing is, uh, legendary.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/workers-try-to-shore-up-tilted-buildings-after-taiwan-quake-1.3794427
10
To Peter Fitzroy: I have read the entire thread containing your comments, and it is puzzling as to why you think the Chinese (both engineers and politicians) will have made no mistakes. Have you seen the countless videos on the brand new cities, entire areas, where the buildings are degrading and collapsing? Very poor quality materials and workmanship. It is documented, interviews with engineers at the time of the building of the 3 Gorges Dam, that it is of faulty construction. You call for evidence and it is easily accessible. I have personal experience of the fallibility of engineers: my step dad was the chief engineer for United Technologies, Pratt, for the engine on the SR-70 Blackbird. He is human and not infallible, but did a great job on that project. However the caveat comes from my train ride in a couchette in England in 1980. I sat with a European Space Agency engineer who was busy looking through his papers. I asked him about his work and he told me that there was concern in European scientific circles about the way NASA in US was building it’s space hardware. He said young engineers in the US were a bit cocky and believed in their own designs on paper too much. They were not testing each component as they were designed to see if they worked in the real world. He warned that there might be a catastrophic accident in the future because of this attitude (hubris). The Challenger Shuttle craft disaster happened a few years later.
130
Compared to Australia, the population of China is 57x larger. As a very rough estimate, there may be 50 bad Chinese engineers for every bad Australian engineer. More than 50 times more good engineers (after seeing Dr. Peter Ridd’s case, I can’t imagine that Chinese universities could be inferior). They probably did not use bad engineers for Three Gorges.
41
Challenger disaster- the above comment implies the fault was with young engineers, not so. Richard Fyneman showed in a dramatic TV show the technical nature of the fault but the blame was with a series of management decisions.
Chinese buildings- yes I have seen the same evidence.
Cost cutting is learned quickly, the culture of quality control and thinking long term ahead of getting paid for the current order seems to take decades, but note how fast Japanese industry learned with concerted effort.
20
To Peter Fitzroy: I have read the entire thread containing your comments, and it is puzzling as to why you think the Chinese (both engineers and politicians) will have made no mistakes. Have you seen the countless videos on the brand new cities, entire areas, where the buildings are degrading and collapsing? Very poor quality materials and workmanship. It is documented, interviews with engineers at the time of the building of the 3 Gorges Dam, that it is of faulty construction. You call for evidence and it is easily accessible. I have personal experience of the fallibility of engineers: my step dad was the chief engineer for United Technologies, Pratt, for the engine on the SR-70 Blackbird. He is human and not infallible, but did a great job on that project. However the caveat comes from my train ride in a couchette in England in 1980. I sat with a European Space Agency engineer who was busy looking through his papers. I asked him about his work and he told me that there was concern in European scientific circles about the way NASA in US was building it’s space hardware. He said young engineers in the US were a bit cocky and believed in their own designs on paper too much. They were not testing each component as they were designed to see if they worked in the real world. He warned that there might be a catastrophic accident in the future because of this attitude (hubris). The Challenger Shuttle craft disaster happened a few years later.
00
Three Gorges was designed and built by a multinational consortium and was a decades long process. Many Chinese engineers were sent to US Engineering schools for training in anticipation of the project. Early surveys and design concepts were done by US engineering consultants. Nearly every major global engineering firm had some role in the design/construction/oversight process. It would be enormously embarrassing if the dam failed. There would also be a huge issue with laying blame given the involvement of so many large companies.
70
Rick
See #5.1.1.5
00
Ian: IIRC the engineers at Morton Thiokol who designed the O-Ring which failed in the challenger disaster had warned NASA that the O-Rings could get too stiff to function reliably at cold temperatures. NASA made the determination to launch in spite of the warning.
20
Which large dam in the world is STRAIGHT across the river it holds back?
The Three Gorges Dam of course.
Why are dams across large water courses Curved with the curve facing up stream?
To distribute the load into the surrounding hillside.
Why are Dams firmly anchored to the bedrock?
Why is the Three Gorges dam constructed of SQUARE blocks of concrete?
Why do roman arches have a key stone?
Why does the Three Georges Dam not have a curved shape or key stone?
Great technological expertise at work!
73
🙂
00
“Which large dam in the world is STRAIGHT across the river it holds back?”
Warragamba Dam !
30
Wyvenhoe Dam,
Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia River
Dworshak Dam, Clearwater River, Idaho
Longtan hydropower station
Bhakra Nangal Dam, Nepal
30
Great links AndyG55, they all PROVE my point. You can build straight dams they are easier to build, but use much more concrete. The heavier the better. Smart engineers use nature to make dams using nature to disperse the load of all that water.
Compare the height/width rations of your ‘Large’ dams. Even that highest dam has a VERY small footprint. The 3GD has a 600km long reservoir sitting behind it and the only thing keeping it up is gravity and a few suspect anchors into bedrock. The videos and pictures about the making of the 3GD make interesting viewing for those prepared to Look and SEE what they are looking at.
Your picture link of the 3GD that all can see is of the ‘DOWNSTREAM’ slope!
00
You said
“Why are dams across large water courses Curved with the curve facing up stream?”
Very often, if they are Gravity dams, THEY DON’T
You are deliberately DENYING what you actually wrote.
Are you Fitz #2 !
3GD, like nearly all GRAVITY dams has a near vertical upstream wall.
https://img2.chinadaily.com.cn/images/202007/17/5f113885a3108348fcde2561.jpeg
00
“Why does the Three Georges Dam not have a curved shape or key stone?”
Because its not an arch dam !!
00
Elephant Butte Dam
Really, I could keep going almost indefinitely !
Just google “Gravity Dams” and go to images.
20
Tallowa Dam, Cataract Dam
10
AG your education is sadly lacking, Large Rivers. Dams not earth empoundments. Need I say more?
13
Lake Argyle is another example of an earthen wall construction Dam .
00
Poor Slithers
You have ZERO knowledge of Gravity Dams which are used on MANY big rivers and are usually pretty much straight.
Do at least look at some of the ones above to try to alleviate your ignorance.
https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/16/43/640×448/gallery-1477689843-dworshak-dam-1.jpg
http://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0//attachment/2017/2017-07-27/8a5a0baa-6937-41ec-bf84-4c3d9da98795.jpg
https://www.postoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Bhakra-Dam-Hydroelectricity-Project.jpg
https://files.structurae.net/files/photos/2754/0197332-r2-063-30.jpg
This ones on the Brahmaputra River is that a big enough river for you !
https://s2.dmcdn.net/v/K346_1P1EMd8cXVY8/x1080
https://images.indianexpress.com/2018/11/ganga-dam.jpg Ganges River. !
50
Or how about the old Aswan Dam on the Nile ? Big enough River ?
https://kids.kiddle.co/images/thumb/4/49/Aswan_low_dam2.JPG/350px-Aswan_low_dam2.JPG
Or this one on the Amazon River? Is that a Big enough River ??
https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/06/19112039/5-Tucuri-dam.jpg
20
Congo River
https://media.pri.org/s3fs-public/styles/story_main/public/story/images/CONGO-inga%203%20dam.png?itok=zqTPh3XL
Ob River (5th longest in the world)
https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/the-bratsk-hydroelectric-power-station-operated-by-irkutskenergo-pjsc-picture-id1184520851
Yenisei River (6th largest in the world
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/krasnoyarsk-dam-yAenisei-river-russia-powerful-hydroelectric-power-station-siberia-106884254.jpg
20
Or this gorgeous straight gravity dam in Quebec
https://www.canadianconsultingengineer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/hydroquebec_dam.png
20
Andy, like that one in Quebec.
10
Gravity dams require a Sloped face, all the dams you cite have such a slopped face. 3GD does not have a slopped face although it is in effect a gravity dam although it is straight, Chinese technology at work.
The Math is very complicated, but, in essence a slope of around 15 degrees distributes the weight of the water behind the dam DOWNWARDS. thus reducing the weight of water that is pressing upon the vertical face of the dam which usually uses Curvature to distribute the weight to the sides. Combinations of Slope and curvature offer the strongest dam structures.
Now go look for straight dams that do not have a slopping upstream face and tell me how high they are regarding water levels above and below. At 168 meters water depth the 3GD had better be extra strong to withstand getting full, which is why it has all its spill ways wide open at present.
Wuhan will see the effects of all that water some time around Wednesday evening and then steadily worsening as the inflow to the 3GD is more than the outflow at present, so they cannot shut them off any time soon.
02
Is that you Peter?
Doubling down on your own ignorance.. so funny !
Basically every one of the dams above is a GRAVITY DAM.. Get over it. !
LEARN SOMETHING !!
20
“3GD does not have a slop
ped face”Really.. !
https://images.assettype.com/swarajya%2F2020-07%2F06f91ac3-427e-477f-b8bf-170ab82ab48f%2FThree_Gorges_Dam__2872397048_.jpg?w=640&q=75&auto=format%2Ccompress
I think everyone can see very clearly that IT DOES. !!
Try again, oh slithery one. ! 🙂
10
??
10
“which usually uses Curvature”
Like NONE of the dams above, right?
Please try to learn the difference between an arch dam and a gravity dam.
Save making a fool of yourself.
Hint, this is an arch dam…. its curved
https://tasmania.com/points-of-interest/gordon-river-dam/
This is a Gravity dam.. usually straight (as shown by the many pictures above.
https://cdn.britannica.com/20/119620-050-AC901996/Yichang-Three-Gorges-Dam-Yangtze-River-China.jpg
A Gravity dam is sometimes given a curve as well, in which case it uses two different actions to support itself.
10
Perhaps this will help you… if you let it.
https://www.ussdams.org/dam-levee-education/overview/types-of-dams/
00
And of course a very famous combination arch-gravity dam
00
“that do not have a slop
ping upstream face “You mean like nearly every dam linked to above ?
Most gravity dams have a near vertical upstream face, sometimes with a small heel at the bottom.
10
Now here’s a gravity dam !! 285m tall. That’s nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower
https://ak.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/32760547/thumb/1.jpg
Oh and look, its straight. !
and it upstream face actually leans backwards slightly !
10
Longest Gravity dam in the world
https://previews.123rf.com/images/kwanchaichaiudom/kwanchaichaiudom1709/kwanchaichaiudom170900055/89524730-aerial-view-from-drone-of-khun-dan-prakan-chon-dam-in-nakonnarok-province-thailand-largest-and-longe.jpg
With a vertical upstream wall
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/landscape-view-dam-ridge-khun-dan-prakan-chon-dam-khlong-tha-dan-dam-landscape-view-dam-ridge-khun-dan-prakan-chon-dam-134082644.jpg
Not slopped at all 😉
10
David
What do you call a dam when it is full?
Here is the current satellite image of water vapour over China
This is not good as it is stationary over the Yangtze catchment. Lets hope they haven’t put the flood gates on automatic and left for the week-end like our Australian bureaucrats.
71
Just just think of all that “renewable green energy” the dam is producing. Nuclear and CO2 free….
52
😉
Pre-industrial: “Make hay while the sun shines.”
Post-industrial: “Make aluminium while the dam is full.”
If there was ever a cis-industrial version of this aphorism I must have missed it.
20
They have never had all the turbines running at the same time, think of the waste!
Ooops think of the flooding that would cause!
20
This video from cf jingara shows déformation in the dam wall from satellite photos attributed to Australia Geoscience.
Not only is China threatened by increased and worsening flooding, there is also a plague of locusts out of East Africa via Pakistan that is on the way. If it actually gets into China in a meaningful way the results will be devastating.
It is almost biblical
This earlier video from cf jingara is also instructional
71
The immediate effects of dams bursting or being deliberately blown in a lot of cases are only part of China’s problem. Food scarcity is about to be a problem more widespread than the floods, with the main rice-bowl and the summer rice crop wiped out by the flooding, along with many grain stores. The government grain stores that already held mouldy rice are now underwater. (Check out Aspergillus flavus if you want to know about mouldy grain effects.)
That is in addition to 55% of China’s pig herd already being wiped out by African Swine Fever in the last 12 months. Food will be a major factor in the way things play out over the next few months. Floods, plagues, earthquakes, locusts, totalitarianism and corruption. A winning combination.
90
So many Western politicians love the Chi-comms. Chairman Do Pi Dan of Victoriastan is one of them.
162
I am not following this logic. It is full and its function as a flood barrier is now over. So the floods will happen downstream. The dam has done one of its many jobs. It is not failing. It is working.
They are now blowing up smaller dams down stream to get the water out of the system and to the sea faster. Flooding is going to happen because the entire system of many dams and locks and tributaries is full.
Of course in hindsight they should have been releasing water much faster along the entire route and had lesser floods earlier, but it was a gamble at every levee, dam and sluice. Big damage today against massive damage tomorrow. Not a nice choice for a bureaucrat to make. Damned either way. If he prevents bigger damage he is blamed for the lesser damage, the bigger damage never happens and the blame is allocated. So better to wait for massive damage and then claim it was not his fault. Just like Brisbane.
And is it more full than ever before or simply dumping the excess water which is at record inflow levels? That is not clear. A bit of both. Clearly full and doing its job, the only question now is whether it can release water fast enough. Unlike the Brisbane earthworks dam at Wivenhoe, a concrete skin on a pile of dirt, it will not wash away completely if the water overflows. And it will not break like glass.
It is a huge concrete and steel gravity dam of independent sections. They are not tied to anything and rely entirely on their weight and I presume the cross section also uses the weight of the water to anchor it further by gravity, dependent on the shape at the bottom and the rock base. The problem with anchoring the base is that any movement creates an increased tipping moment on a very tall structure, something to be avoided totally.
In principle the sections are independently strong, so the imagined collapse video is wrong. Collapse of one section or even a split would not lead to collapse of the others. And at 181 metres tall, it is a very high dam, 60 stories. It relies entirely on its weight to keep back the water, not by some imagined connection at the ends or the bottom.
This dam has many functions though, not just flood control. One of the most important was to raise the water level upstream ten metres to make the river upstream navigable and it has done that, increasing river traffic fivefold in tons. And that also massively helps the fall for hydro electricity driven by gravity. Every metre is critical. The dam was designed to be full.
So I am not clear on what the problem is except that it is no longer functioning as flood control. And people are scared. And they imagine things. Yes, the dam is being tested but I have read nothing to indicate the dam is anything more than full or any more full than previously.
But that does not mean the secretive Chinese government is telling the entire truth. Infections in Victoria were in the low teens too, according to Comrade Dan. And now he says it is all our fault that he hired students for police work.
213
And it’s a static load. There are no huge waves breaking on the shore. I have not read anything to say that the dam is more full than ever or that the level is rising out of control. The engineers decide on the level of the dam unless the ability to dump water is less than the inflow, which is possible. That could happen and the design of the dam would make no difference and it could become the world’s biggest spillway, submerged. This does not mean it collapses but such a natural disaster has nothing to do with the dam, unless it collapses. Wivenhoe however would have collapsed, dumping three Sydney Harbours of water into the narrow valley of the Brisbane river and washing away most of Brisbane. Of course the authorities who created the problem blamed the engineeers. Luckily the committee had put only recently put emergency plugs in the dam, which saved the day and the city. Tim Flannery and friends nearly destroyed Brisbane.
172
And I presume they can release water optionally from much further down at much higher pressure, greatly increasing the flow. Even down the ship lift at a pinch. So I doubt the dam is in any danger. The danger downstream to megacities like Wuhan is however much greater. Maybe the Wuhan Institute of Virology will be washed away. That would be a great result, even for the Chinese.
112
“and it could become the world’s biggest spillway, submerged”
And if water builds up on the downstream side of the dam, that REDUCES the deformation pressure on the dam wall.
10
The newly built emergency spillway is not actually in the dam wall itself, but cut through a rock outcrop at the side.clearly visible in the foreground of this picture.
https://i.postimg.cc/3JQfXvgX/Wyvenhoe-emergency-spillway.png
20
sorry, maybe not rock, certainly through a raised section of land that is not part of the dam wall.
20
There is probably a “pushback” effect resulting from the overflow pipes that seem to run down the dam wall and exit at the bottom.
Slow horizontal entry speed at the top, vertical acceleration and a “hard right” at the bottom.
Seems like a good design feature.
01
Not so calm Keith!
I would hate to think of the amount of cavitation that occurs with these releases. The sooner the rain stops the better for these people.
11
?
My point wasn’t about resident safety downstream ; that’s an obvious mess, tragic.
Perhaps I wrongly assumed that the water was entering a vertical tube for power generation or external duct for overflow.
If the water for power is taken out near the bottom of the wall there won’t be any benefit.
If overflow runs almost vertically down a slice then the reaction provided by the dam base to send the water out horizontal would be a plus for dam stability.
The question is, is the reaction force significant in pushing the dam back.
If people haven’t moved yet after months of this?
Maybe there’s too much noise from the cavitation.
We get lots of that in the local surf.
01
What are you talking about?
00
Good points.
11
Indeed. Good points. The video is a psy-op. There is threat of earthquake, I believe, so collapse is not out of the question. But in other respects the dam seems to be doing what it was designed to do.
20
A bit of a worry though
There is a bloke who posts over at SDA whose father is a big dam builder who was offered the job on this one. Seems he turned it down when he worked out that the CCP knew more than the geology mapping.
Took on a $2+ bill job in southern Africa instead.
30
Here’s another version of what’s happening . . . . .
‘Largest Floods in Chinese History Wiped Out the Country’s Food & Grain Supply (1016) – YouTube’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erONP33MBlA&feature=emb_logo
20
Good thing then that China owns a whole continent that is massively under-producing food. China can just, in a few hours, throw out the idiot current managers that are mis-managing so badly. China can then unlock the food producing potential of this whole continent, simply by getting rid of these incompetent idiots. There is a saying that if trade does not cross border, armies will. But China does not need armies as it owns the whole lot already. They just have to change the CEO’s of some of the institutions. There is already the most highly productive agricultural workforce on the planet
on this land already. This workforce is currently being blocked from full production by idiotic laws and a parasite class that is happy to see starving people all over the world while blocking cheap quality food getting to them. I am a farmer. I am horrified by the obscene waste of huge quantities of high quality protein I could be supplying to the world at extremely low cost. And this through the worst drought in this area since 1929. I could do this with virtually hardly any extra labour or input. Even if we keep borders closed for plague, shipping freight can get the food from here to china in quick time. In this modern age, people starving is not a practical or even market or physical problem – it is a political one.
90
China’s problems are but beginning. This is from India …
See on Youtube:
Gravitas: China’s dams of doom: 94,000 ageing dams at risk in China
10
I am a little surprised that the climanistas havent piled on to these events AGW “extreme” weather style. The weirder ones usually also get the the stage of saying its direct climate wrath/karma/gaia strikes back for all the coal fired power. I guess its coming , especially with an IPCC shindig coming up in a few months.
30
No, no. I don’t think China has climate change. They are communist, after all. Only capitalism produces the kinds of CO2 that causes climate change, and this event, because it is China, is just a natural event that happens every once in a while. The only time they have climate change events is when the origin of the CO2 is clearly identifiable as derived from capitalist activity outside China, which is not evident in this case. I read it in a book.
160
” I read it in a book.”
You can’t believe that then – books are so yesterday.
Only if it was from the internet
(/s in case)
80
This ABC report from 1999 on corruption during the dams construction is something today’s ABC would not dare do. Therein lies the silence maybe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJn35MTKCNY
50
Given there is no way to verify the integrity of the dam all talk of the dam collapsing is pure speculation not much unlike the CAGW hoax. If it breaks it breaks, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. Please provide real evidence and not simulations, or move to another topic. Otherwise, why not provide simulations of what might happen when a super volcano erupts or a mega earthquake hits LA? They would be far more interesting and spectacular.
As for keeping an eye on the #ThreeGorgesDam for news, I just saw this update:
Really? Sounds like BS unless supporting evidence can be presented immediately.
10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China?wprov=sfla1
12
That was meant to be a reply to #13.
12
The CCP have control of Google Maps- they control map information for the entire country.
00
Google Maps are historical. They are only updated every 2-3yrs, so what you see on google maps could be 12 months ago photo.
10
Image of TGD on Google says 6/4/2020
10
Yes, I checked the date when I looked on Google Earth, hence my point.
22
Check that is not copyright rather than image date
10
I just brought it up for a look
Image date I see is 2/23/2018
Copyright 2020 Maxar Technologies
00
I have Google Earth Pro, and the image I see for the Three Gorges Dam is dated 6/4/2020 (at the left of the text along the very bottom right of the screen where it shows the geolocation) and that image I see is a Computer generated image showing the dam wall, no question, and it has been like that for Months now.
Hover your mouse directly over the dam wall, and then scroll right in, and it becomes obvious.
Tony.
40
If you look very closely you will see EXACTLY the same vehicles in EXACTLY the same places on those ‘Recent’ images.
20
I just went on Google Earth and the image of the Three Gorges dam IMHO is only a simulation! It changed colour when the mouse went over the dam and the red items are clearly NOT real.
20
I realise the following idea is pure speculation but I hope it comes to fruition if the dams do burst. Remember the Chernobyl nuclear disaster? It was understood by many it marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet regime. If the Chinese dams in question do collapse then we can only hope it’s the beginning of the end of the CCP. Many lives would be lost in the process but at least their sacrifice won’t go to waste. It’s not the final solution but it would give us more breathing space given the increasing number of heated exchanges between the West and China. We need something to change to cool things otherwise things might soon get very serious on the world stage. The CCP must go.
31
The original photo was probably fake and the dam is safe, the authorities say so.
https://www.chinadailyhk.com/articles/114/214/218/1562566390781.html
‘The CCP must go.’
That seems highly unlikely to happen.
02
This dam doesn’t need to break to cause a disaster downstream. I live in Brisbane and watched the 2010/11 flood, caused by poor dam management (and confirmed by the subsequent goverment investigation). The Wyvenhoe dam, like the 3 Gorges, is designed for flood mitigation, where the top half or so is kept empty for just this type of event. The Wyvenhoe dam was about 80% full (including most of the mitigation volume) at the start of the wet season, but should have been kept only half full in readiness. But IMO CAGW-induced fear of lower future rainfall and negative press from minor downstream flooding prevented the operators from following the dam management manual. I watched online (in horror) as a large stationary low pressure system over SE Queensland caused the dam to fill rapidly (in a few days) to 100%, then to danger level, by which time the only option was to fully open the floodgates to avoid damaging the dam, causing $billions in flood damage downstream (Brisbane, Ipswich, etc.). Multiply this by a few times and that is what appears to be happening in China. As I understand it, the 3 Gorges dam is designed for flood mitigation, as well as various other purposes (navigation, water supply, hydro generation, etc.).
50
The 3 Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric project. Its ability to mitigate flood is near negligible. Its total storage is 8% of its annual throughput.
The Wivenhoe Dam is a water storage dam. It can provide substantial flood mitigation if operated correctly. Its total storage is 200% of the annual throughput.
Sommerset dam is closer in concept to the 3 Gorges Dam albeit a few orders of magnitude smaller.
30
I seem to remember that most of the damage in Brisbane was to buildings that were on the flood plain. The people at fault were those that allowed any building on a flood plain – no dam is going to stop it flooding again at some time.
40
3GD live feed
10
I don’t think Google Maps/Google Earth has live satellite footage. It will be a photo from last time they updated the database. I doubt they refresh them very often.
30
AFIK most satellite imagery of this sort is not live – military I don’t know about.
Landsat was about every 16 days and then the data has to be processed – you want it you pay, someone else wanted it you pay less.
It is interesting that. in these parts, someone (who?) paid for hi res imagery (Digital Globe IIRC) along the streams (for why?) which Google is using. Along the creek here I can plainly see our truck at the machinery shed. Off stream not so much.
10
While everyone is focused on the dam failing, it may be an intentional distraction. Was the dam too full in the first place?
Once the dam is full, it can do nothing to mitigate the floods from the now record seasonal rains. It stops being a flood mitigation dam and provides no obstacle at all. However hydro power and thus money made depends on water depth where every metre is cash, there might be a real temptation to run the dam far too high in late spring, early summer, totally eliminating its design use for the the annual flood mitigation. If there is going to be a scandal in administration in China, look to a profit motive.
32
Latest Google Earth image is from the 4th of June, 2020.
10
Interesting – I just logged in, shows image 2/23/2018
00
Latest Google Earth image is from the 4th of June, 2020.
01
Over the next few days, we shall see whatever happens, because it will happen, for good or not.
What we will also see is the result of 1.5 Billion people who have lost their grain food supply. Further on, we shall see everything about famine unfold in the next 12 months, with or without media control.
This event is on auto-pilot. Nothing anyone can do except watch it happen. Sad as that may be, the decisions were made long ago, the only part left out is Nature. Nature will do as it wishes. We and They are just fleas on the dog.
Xi Jinping will, like it or not, be buying millions of tons of soybeans from the USA. That, or revolution. Starving people are difficult to reason with. Just ask Louis XIV.
61
Lance:
I think you meant Louis XV1, although the food problem in France was largely due to a volcano (Laki eruption in Iceland in 1783) which resulted in poor harvests in that and the following year. Coupled with an antique agricultural sector and a bankrupt Government which had spent future income for 100 years (many aristocrats had achieved ‘noble’ status by a lump sum purchase which meant they didn’t pay most taxes there after, so the rich no longer paid and the burden on the poor and middle classes kept increasing ). It was the middle class that started the French revolution.
The problem for the communists is that at least 70% of the population are dependant on farming and they are facing a triple threat of swine flu, floods and locusts. Then there is a strong sector of middle class people chafing at the heavy handed repression by the government, and the heavy handed handling of the COVID crisis hasn’t been favourably received. There is no pressure relief valve for the government, as any lessening of repression will result in demands for more freedoms.
In the words of the old chinese curse the government is living in interesting times.
80
Agricultural markets are rather more complex than folks whose only contact with the food chain is a supermarket realize.
If one has gold there is food available around the world, but as a practical matter, with the number of mouths to feed
if they choose to feed them the Chinese are going to be tapping into the US, Canada, And Mexico, then, in the next season,
Brazil. South America is a bit constrained now, because Venezuela is unable to produce.
Both the northern and southern markets, if they gauge the Chinese demand real, will likely reduce animal production to increase the grain
stocks available for export. Domestic meat prices will rise. Stored stocks will be pulled from storage; The US can replenish from season to season, and ,
if the demand is sufficient our southern tier of states can shoehorn in a second season of grains. One might even see an explosion of domino irrigation in the desert
southwest is prices rise enough- and pasture plowed. The US has a large amount of fallow land and a tier of cropland where three grain seasons are possible,
as does northern Brazil. Covid is not rampant in our agricultural sector in the US.
And, of course, Australia has many resources beyond those neccessary for it’s own needs.
Fast food production beyond normal market levels requires adequate ground, fertilizer, infrastructure, energy, and capable people.
The windows, to decide on and finance additional plantings are short. Food spoils. Storage and transportation infrastructure are critical.
Real world options are likely to be more limited than one night suspect.
The Chinese might decide to tighten their belts, admit no issues and suffer. It would not be the first time. Their population and culture under communism
has shown an ability for this before.
Or they might decide to try to buy food.
Chinese need, and rising domestic meat prices would attract political attention. Would the reaction be different from a Trump or Biden administration?
Almost certainly. Could the non-US producers make enough of a difference to strike a deal independently? I doubt it. The US (north) and Brazil/Argentina(south)
produce about 70% of the world’s soybeans across two major seasons, and in a pinch I believe the US can achieve far and away the most emergency additional capacity
and actually get it to market. Wheat is a bit different, with China, the EU, Russia, and India all producing more than the US….until you consider who could get marginal crops to market quickly if crops failed in one of the other producers. China is a postulated failure, and one doesn’t see much surplus in the other majors, although the opportunity to hold
a gun to China’s head might be appealing.
To me, It doesn’t matter if the dam fails. It’s the soggy cropland, and the way the Chinese (and the world) cope with the supply disruption that may, over the next year, determine the scope of this disaster.
We have been wondering if the Chinese can be made to pay for COVID????
70
“Xi Jinping will, like it or not, be buying millions of tons of soybeans from the USA.”
I read a day or two ago that a large order of US foodstuffs had been placed by China.
10
And when they ran the Wivenhoe dam at 191%, that was deadly. I was intrigued that any dam could run over 100%. That did not make sense, so I asked an engineer who helped build it. The extra 100% was legislated for safety because it was a cheap earthworks dam and if it overflowed, the dam would be washed away. So the extra 100% could happen in a single night in tropical Brisbane.
The new emergency plugs put in by the safety committee did what the bureaucrats could not do and refused to do, controlled as they were by Green politicians who thought Tim Flannery was a real scientist expert in such things as climate and dams. And what ancient wombats had to say about them. But wombats are not beavers and luckily it did not rain heavily that night or Brisbane would be gone. This is despite the fact that Wivenhoe holds only 1/10th of the water of the Three Gorges dam (4 million cubic metres against 40 million cubic metres)
82
For those unclear about these dam “plugs” might be:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_plug?wprov=sfla1
22
A story about wombats and water.
People had a pet wombat. The question came up
“Can wombats swim?”
Wombat bundled off to the nearest waterhole and pushed in.
Didn’t answer the question – sank to the bottom and walked out.
20
The Townsville ballast and earthen wall dam reached 250% capacity mid Feb 2019. It’s a bit like engineering for failure levels in aircraft, you certify the wing to +3.8G (the typical baseline certification level), but the wings of some aircraft can reach 7.5 G loading before the structural failure occurs. The safety and and manufacturer/producer engineering margins are over built, plus rated dam capacity is to cope with over a century of degradation and aging, while maintaining the required structural safety margin throughout its entire life. Mostly it works better than expected.
10
Wivenhoe had overflow plugs at three levels at the time of the 2011 floods. The problem was that overflow from those plugs (on the control room side of the dam) was onto the side of the earth wall.
After the flood, someone realised that, if there was enough water flowing through the blown plugs, it had the potential to erode the earth wall on that end of the dam, which would then threaten the integrity of the whole earth wall.
Remediation, IIRC, involved providing a concrete runoff area for the emergency spillway. I can’t find any references to that atm.
30
‘According to the Three Gorges Corporation, the water level in the reservoir reached a record high flood season level of 164.18 meters on July 19. The previous high level reached during the flood season since the dam became fully operational in 2012 was 163.11 meters. The reservoir is designed to hold a maximum water level of 175 meters.’
Scitechdaily
20
Here’s a globull warming prediction FAIL for China from 2009.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/climate-change-impacts-chinas-environment-biophysical-impacts
32
But, David, there you go. Trying to compare Climate with Weather.
According to Climate, there is no problem. Just a lack of water.
According to Weather, there is no problem. Simply Humans ignoring Nature.
You see, in “NewSpeak” (tm, G. Orwell), everything is explainable.
Please read Voltaire, Candide. “Everything works out for the best possible outcome in this best of all possible worlds” as said by Dr. Pangloss.
“For,” said he, “all that is for the best. If there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for everything is right.” (5.14)
ie, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. easy to say for those high and dry and well fed. 🙂
/sarc off
40
And as we all know, the Climate has nothing to do with the weather. Ask the BOM. In Melbourne we had the coolest summer I can remember. Few days over 30. Two half days.
The BOM announced that we had the second hottest summer ever. That’s not true. Worse, they recognize no records before 1909 so how could they know?
162
182 metre dam wall. For perspective, that’s deeper than a lot of military submarines can cope with and the wall is 2.3 km long. Dams look almost serene standing there full of expansive blue water but that belies the energy contained. Seeing reports of seepage under the wall and nothing is clear at present but with those pressures it won’t seep forever. It would turn into a major issue at some point? One of Australia’s Collins subs actually sprang a leak at around 100 metres off the Perth coast years back when a pipe failed and the crew had only seconds to react with the pressure of the inflow. Over to the engineers….
70
At maximum fill, that 182 m is some 17 +/- Bar pressure at the bottom. And the bottom was not keyed into bedrock.
Any leakage at the bottom will become catastrophic.
Let’s all hope those concepts were integrated into the dam design, all puns intended.
40
Lance
I finally got 2020 imagery.
Idle speculation maybe
182 m high.
I just ran the Google Pro ruler over the dam wall and it looks like it is about 100 m thick at the base.
Hopefully they got their triangle of forces right.
21
That Collins “incident” came very close (within seconds) to the boat and at least half, but probably all of it’s crew being lost bearing in mind that those boats have only two waterproof compartments.
The Collins class submarines and their replacements are classic examples of why politicians shouldn’t be allowed to make engineering decisions.
From Wikipedia:
72
I guarantee you the general public does not know what their max pressure depth is, the the Navy will not be talking about it any time soon, but it will be waaaay below 100 m depth, more like 500 to 600 meters.
30
Just to make it really obvious I’ve added an update at the top of the post. I think the most remarkable thing at the moment is just the floods themselves. Even those who don’t use twitter, just find a few minutes to scroll through the astonishing and somewhat heart wrenching footage coming out.
UPDATE: Scroll through the Twitter thread #ChinaFloods
See the spectacular footage of raging torrents like I have never seen. Why isn’t this on the news?
121
I think two possible reasons it might not be in the news are possibly 1) Chinese lives don’t matter or 2) the legacy media and Sheeple are terrified it might really be due to “global warming” and since the UN and the West allows the communists to produce unlimited CO2 they wouldn’t want to admit supposed warming as a cause (not that it is a genuine cause, of course).
53
‘Why isn’t this on the news?’
Perhaps it’s because it would subtract from the time devoted to perpetuating the COVID scare.
120
Yep
A prediction – covid coverage will scale back to near zero in the USA if the Left win USA in 2020.
Mind you, if the Left do win, you might, as a freedom loving person, consider leaving the country unless it gets ugly in which case you may be literally fighting for your life when the leftist brown shirts start employing “the lists” they have already drawn up of freedom lovers….
Comrade Obummer will be Commie in Chief then I suspect….
142
Only Black Lives Matter to the press?
72
It is in the news overseas but not here. We are too busy here scaring people about the pandemic.
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ABC tonight had time for:
– a story about 80cm sea level rise by the end of the century
– a story about increased drinking due to covid lockdowns and people “not seeing the woutside world for days on end” where has that happened on a wide scale? then they show a sobering up group in of all places Darwin, and its supposed to be about covid impacts
– a story about people running around an oval in Canberra for 24hrs
– a story about how well managed the BLM protest version 2.0 in Sydney is going to run
but not enough time to cover floods affecting hundreds of millions of people in China
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Like this?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/07/black-armed-not-fking-around-coalition-holds-rally-memphis-member-gets-shot-members-start-fking-around/
Talk about “Fire, Aim, Ready”
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Not a rap for the article but a sidebar ad for the Portnoy interview of Trump is a winner: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/07/must-see-president-trump-interview-bartstool-sports-founder-dave-portnoy/
00
Trying the link again.
CEBM
00
I would just like to say it’s a Tim Flannery of a day today in Sydney.
By that I mean it is pissing down rain all day just like Tim said it wouldn’t!
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Mid North Coast heavy rainfall since yesterday and continuing this evening.
Last year we had water restrictions and now the dams are full and the aquifers.
Tom Foolery please note.
ps: Sydney Opera House did not disappear under water in 2000 as you also predicted.
70
Went to Chichester a few days ago.
Water up to brim but not overflowing.
30
Chichester is spilling today KK. Glad they pinned that one to the bedrock a few years back.
Even with all the showers we’ve been having for the last few months plus the restrictions, we are still only up to 75% capacity overall in Hunter storages — only 8.7% greater than a year ago in the drought. We need a decent flood to saturate the catchment and top things up.
Every year the population swells, but the water supply dwindles, and then we lost about 15% to PFAS when the sand beds were contaminated by the RAAF. We needed the extra Dungog dam.
10
Considering Chichester was built nearly 100 years ago it stands as a marker.
If that could be built with so little resources why can’t we do something on a scale fitting for 2020.
I guess the answer is: They sold the land and returned all the money received back to Hunter Water where it rightly belonged, in the hands of the people of Newcastle and the Hunter.
Still, it’s raining today, maybe I should put the bucket out.
10
Thought I’d throw that in as a catcher.
In fact the libl government which took over from the other wasters took All of the Money back to Sydney.
No dam, Newcastle money to Sydney and us on water rationing.
10
What pees me off majorly is that we have to supply water to Gosford/Wyong because the Mardi is so pathetically small for a high-growth area like the Central Coast, and then some bright spark in Sydney wants to syphon off even more Hunter water to supply Hornsby/St Ives to take the pressure off Warragamba. Apparently the Hunter has a limitless water supply to hand out to all and sundry.
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Possibility of Chichester 2..
Not sure where they are up to with that at the moment.
10
In Google Earth Pro (now freely available) there is a history button in the lower left corner (on my mac, anyway) which give access to…history! Going to the last available image, I got 6/4/2020 (i.e. 4th June.)
20
Asia Times reported that “some nonstructural, peripheral parts of the dam had buckled.”
In the meantime, many sources, including Breitbart, reported the partial demolition of an upriver dam to relieve the flood at 3 Gorges.
20
“Non-structural peripheral parts of the dam had buckled”
I’ve been trying to square that line for a while. Not clear from the story how they stopped the seepage either, none of it makes sense – to me. Meanwhile according to what I see there are a large chain of huge dams upstream at higher elevations all full and discharging as fast as possible so the bases are loaded you could say and will be for a while. Anything goes wrong upstream you could see some dominoes falling. There will be some restless nights for a few officials in China atm. It would break the regime.
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I read that. Odd. The Chuhe river is a long way East, far downstream, not upstream. Towards Shanghai. And besides blowing up an upstream dam could disastrously increase pressure on the Three Gorges dam with a huge surge, not decrease it. The dam they have blown up is far downriver where all the dams and levees are full. The problem is likely that some cannot release water fast enough, the gates are blocked or the damage upstream exceeds the damage downstream. So they have blown them up. To me upstream is towards the source, against the flow, higher elevation. Downstream is with the flow and down, assuming gravity still works in China.
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One real worry is the Pudong area in Shanghai, which used to be a flood plain. When I first went there it was sand. And the levees on the City side, the Bund, had portholes in the carpark, well above the water level. Now the Pudong has the international airport, multiple universities and is covered in housing and American offices like Hewlett Packard and Microsoft and more. And our offices. The potential damage would not be measured in millions but many billions.
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Epoch Times has a story which includes the effect of that levee demolition on the surrounding area.
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The quantity of energy dispersing into space must be ginormous.
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Basically identical to that sent from the sun and absorbed by Earth. Give or take a bit of extra or less water in the atmosphere.
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“ . . . footage of raging torrents. I have never seen water move on that scale.”
Interesting wording!
A person from a single vantage point can only see a small part of a massive flood. Thousands of people have done so. Think of what might have been the cause (causes) of the ancient and biblical flood stories. There has been debate, mostly in the negative sense, of whether humans witnessed the massive post-glacial flooding in Washington State {See: Ice Age Floods Institute (IAFI)}.
Only anecdotal accounts of some great floods are available. Example: California, 1862
Then reporting, after the fact, got better.
most destructive river flood in the history of the United States
There is a good film – black & white – about that one.
China has a history of massive floods. The important thing about the current flooding, other than death and destruction, is the role of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
“ Why isn’t this on the news?”
Many prior comments point to some of the answers, but with modern technology there is no way this flooding will not be in the news – in color. Already a Wikipedia entry.
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By viewing the dam in Google’s 3D mode you can easily recreate the distortion by modifying the viewing angle from straight up to an oblique perspective. It is an artifact of the 3D viewer.
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Yes, the water levels at the base of the dam are hilarious.
You couldn’t mistake that for real.
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Regardless of whether the Three Gorges Dam is safe or desirable, at least the Chi-comms build dams, 87,000 of them (c.f. US, 84,000, Canada 15,000, Australia 500) (yes, I know the geography is different). It’s almost impossible if not actually impossible to build new dams in Australia due to the Left. Even if a dam by some miracle was approved, it would take decades of legal actions before it was finished. Australia as the driest permanently occupied continent should have dammed it’s way out of water shortages decades ago and irrigated most of the dry areas. One such scheme that has been suggested that could contribute to this idea is the Bradfield Scheme although some claim that wouldn’t work but that may be Leftist propaganda. In any case if it didn’t work according to its original conception, the general idea seems sound. It could likely be made to work even if coal or nuclear power was needed to pump water or it could use its own hydro power, 370 MW in the original plan.
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I’ve given up ever expecting to see any large scale useful projects in Australia. Rather, money will be wasted on useless, wealth-consuming projects like Snow Hydro 2 (big battery), other big battery projects, unused desal plant and solar and wind subsidy farms.
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David
I would phrase it as accepting reality rather than giving up. Nothing wrong with any tactic you can use to save your sanity in these crazy times.
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OFF TOPIC BUT VERY BAD NEWS
Get woke, go broke!
It wouldn’t happen in China…
See link for rest. There is an interview about this on ABC-RN about this right now (640am AEST if you want to check it out at their website).
https://amp.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/heavy-industry-co-operates-to-take-on-climate-change-challenge-20200726-p55fjd.html
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It will be the coup de grâce for what’s left of Australian industry.
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A recent newspaper piece involving a woman called Kerry Schott as eco leader of the nation, under Scott Morrison, suggested that CO2 had to be crushed.
Endorsed by our Australian government.
Doom is too light a word for it.
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All these Turnbull appointed climate justice warriors are still in place and while they are this dismal progress towards economic annihilation continues.
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Confirms what I’ve been saying for a long time now. The LNP and ALP+Greens together with many big corporations are on a unity ticket wrt emissions reductions and tackling CAGW. Most people are too asleep to notice it. So voting for either major part at this stage is a vote for the UN Climate Change SCAM.
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PeterS:
At least in SA you are absolutely right. The Premier has sacked 4 from the cabinet, by coincidence they all belong to the conservative side of the party. It may be that one of them being talked about as a future leader sealed his fate, but it seems the Pyne-Birmingham side is in full control of the state party now.
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This has nought to do with government, its big capital window dressing.
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As usual you defend the indefensible. In case you glossed over it the OP mentioned the Morrison government.
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And there’s only one entity capable of opening the door for “big capital”:
Big Government.
As an example think MalEx444.
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BUT
“FT: Big Fund Managers are Demanding Climate Action. But the USA is Leading a Pushback”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/26/ft-big-fund-managers-are-demanding-climate-action-but-the-usa-is-leading-a-pushback/
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As a non-engineer I have no trouble getting my head around a structure that size having some seasonal flex built into it but that is all they Chinese govt had to say. To use the word “deformed” due to recent events is another kettle of fish. Or do they even know what they are saying and capable of telling the truth any case? I just saw an utterly dismal weather forecast for that region over this week with no flood mitigation in reserve now with everything in full overflow. All eyes on Three Gorges but there is a lot of dammed catchments upstream, huge by our standards and their contents would go rifling down through steep gorges all the way to the big one if any one of them failed. Multiple huge dams sequenced on one river system? Something we will never see in this continent but can anyone else see the potential for catastrophe if any one of them fails? The inherent risk of dam building is multiplied by ten. I hope they used better concrete than the Soviets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UsF6yPf7BI
20
I don’t believe a dam failure is a prerequisite for a disaster in China. It appears that literally weeks of rain can do that all by itself. In the last two months a good portion of China has recorded more tham 1m of rain. That is a spectacular amount of water over that time.
30
You say all this like its a bad thing!? The way China has been throwing its weight around and their disgusting, and continuing, behaviour re Wuhan virus, two words leap to mind; Poetic justice. The more China can be crippled, the better for the whole planet.
All over the world, victims (not partners, note) of the Belt and Road initiative are taking this opportunity to shake off China’s stranglehold on their economies and their resources.
All things considered, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch. Hopefully, the stranglehold the CCP holds over the Chinese population will be broken as well, ‘tho I suspect it will simply be replaced by one or more Warlords who will continue the rule of the brutal few over the seething masses of the many. So not much will change for the poor plebs at the bottom of the food chain. If anything, it will probably get worse for them.
Life in China has always been thus, and will probably continue to be so.
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I agree except two places they can continue to embrace Belt and Road servitude is Victoriastan (Australia) and New Zealandistan. These two places have the dubious distinction (I think) of being the only First World places signed up with B&R although they do both have communist leaders.
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Good call, David.
00
Good call, David.
00
Glad you got that off your chest, but there is also realpolitik.
At what point in time did the communists become fascists?
10
What’s in a name? No party calls itself the Reprehensibles.
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Close?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party
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Hi Rick,
You could say it is “poetic justice” based on the behavior of the chinese govt. But one thing we have to keep in mind is the Chinese people are not necessarily supportive of the govt, at least not by agreement. Perhaps by coercion they are.
It’s not the govt leader or leaders who will suffer from these floods. It’s the average Cho in the street (or paddy) who is or will suffer. So maybe our thoughts should be of them and their situation.
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Yes,
we need to separate the Chinese Elites, who have done so much wrong everywhere, from the working people who have no influence with their masters.
Also in Australia the people who signed away water rights to China have done something wrong.
An Australian farmer who buys land at a premium because it has water flowing past should not later find access to that water cut off because “someone” sold the water rights.
There are Australians involved in the water thing: why has no one been identified?
KK
50
Turnbull’s Water Act 2007 innit?
40
Ahhhh.
Himself.
10
I’m rather of the opinion that people get the government they deserve. The culture is exploitative and short term self interest dominates all personal activities of the masses. As I pointed out, if the CCP collapses it will likely be replaced by some other regime which is just as bad, simply because that is the nature of the culture. It is a culture of selfishness and bullying, and a bit of mud isn’t going to change that. In fact, it is likely to exacerbate it.
What is important to us is that China as a great power has its teeth pulled before it can completely dominate trade and international relations. That can most effectively now be done by encouraging other regional players like India and Taiwan to upscale and expand into markets previously dominated by China.
30
Maybe in a democracy that values conversation and debate.
Anyone younger than 70 in China has only ever lived under the current system. Do you deserve what you’re born into?
Yes, there was a civil war and the communists won. The communists were well armed and there had already been figting with Japan that dented the strength of those opposing communism. The totalitarian type of govt that has existed since makes it difficult to rail against.
There are many people in China who do not deserve the devastation of flooding, regardless of what we may think of their govt or others there. Flooding doesn’t discriminate and “poetic justice” isn’t as accurate as we would like.
30
The population of Taiwan is the same as the population of Australia, about one to two Chinese mainland mega-cities, the scale and inertia of China is far larger than both.
India, although democratic, does not see much real security value or advantage in any alliance with the West. They historically see the West as a block of countries which would use India to suit their own power plays. Which is a fairly accurate assessment. At best we share a common threat and problem with China, but India wants nothing much to do with Western agendas, because we will not be coming to bail them out in a shooting conflict with China. Plus India is not broke, but it does have no money to spend on our more advanced weapons systems – and also can’t obtain the newest Western weapons platforms at all. They rely on Israeli companies instead, which are working closely with the latest Western technologies. They spend more time and money trying to keep free of western agendas.
The West somehow isn’t honest with itself about its relationship with India, the fact is we don’t offer a lot they can’t already get via other paths. What India wants is export trade customers, so uses the rhetoric of diplomacy to get it, plus participates in western war-game exercises. But they do NOT want to be a western ally, and will not be following us into any sort of conflict with China. But they will encourage us to do so, as its severs their interests to have us weaken China, in all aspects.
What dealing with China will take is a whole regional international effort, to contain China, in all sorts of ways (the diametric opposite of the past 25 years), because they do not want ‘normal’ international relationships, or agreements, or arrangements in law, nor a continuation of the status quo.
30
Rick, Can you tell us who are these victims from all over the world, who are trying to shake off China’s stranglehold? As for your assertion that the more China can be crippled the better, I take serious issue. If,God forbid the dam was to break then the loss of life and suffering would be horrendous. Surely not to be something you would be wishing for unless of course you have a sick mind! Please confirm or otherwise.
GeoffW
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Yeah, it’s a tough call, but I have no doubt that if the CCP thought that sacrificing 300 million of its own people would advance its cause, it would do it in a heartbeat. If they would do it to themselves, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. China, both as an entity and a culture has no sympathy for the West and its citizens. Xenophobia and self-righteous arrogance dominates Chinese attitudes to the rest of the world.
As to China’s victims; do a little digging around on the Belt and Road Initiative. I’ve seen it at work in my travels around the planet. It is the classic Chinese trojan horse strategy of gaining control of a nation’s infrastructure and then its economy in order to ruthlessly exploit it. Examples can be seen in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, East and West Africa, and even in Australia where Dan Andrews recently signed Victoria up to it, and Darwin Harbour was sold to Chinese interests. And don’t get me started on the 5G network!
To paraphrase Cato the Censor, (google that) “Moreover, China must be destroyed.”
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China’s Belt & Road deals are just smart business by China with willing participants. Don’t begrudge them for that. That’s not China’s fault or more particularly the Chinese people’s fault. It’s the Governments in charge accepting those deals that is the problem. Dan Andrews is the problem for Victoria / Australia. Not China.
What were you saying about we get the govt we deserve? I guess we deserve Dan Andrews. Even those who aren’t in Vic.
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Rick the people are fighting back.
‘Chinese state media Xinhua has drawn fire over its florid description of the flooding in the Yangtze River System that has displaced 1.8 million people in 24 provinces and caused losses of over 49 billion yuan (US$7 billion).
‘User “Dianlin2020” (典林同學) on the Chinese social media site WeChat posted an article on Wednesday (July 22) lashing out at Xinhua’s inappropriate depiction of the floods, saying, “It’s a shame for the media to portray disasters in an amusing way.”
‘To create an eye-catching effect, Xinhua has used its WeChat account to “personify the floods,” describing the deluges as “naughty kids who want to go outside and play.” This was a reference to the breached levees and the massive pressure on the Three Gorges Dam, which straddles the river upstream in the Hubei Province.
‘The Chinese netizen criticized the mainstream media for adopting such a light-hearted tone to cover natural calamities, showing no sympathy for victims and their suffering. The WeChat-style media language, characterized by eye-popping headlines and a playful tenor, has replaced what used to define the mainstream media – reports with depth, complexity, seriousness, and logic, he lamented.’
Taiwan News
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The rain forecast for China looks ominous for the next six days when you look at wxmaps. Click the link below, select Tropics Domain then scroll down and through “700mb Vertical Velocity or Precipitation” into the map area. Then scroll up to the top of map area for the desired day of forecast, 1 to 6.
http://wxmaps.org/fcst.php
20
They might have to start importing from Aus, tariff or no tariff.
00
No wonder we are in drought, China has stolen more than their fair share! Par for the course!
20
What comes of exporting those Oz water rights then?
20
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7211833/China-revealed-biggest-foreign-owner-Australian-water.html
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How can this be justified.
It seems immoral to be treating Australian riverside farmers like this.
30
O.K. so China is bad, but there are some Australians who sold them the water.
30
As they say it takes two to tango. Let me know when the music stops.
20
Give me a break, floods are coming and their investment is virtually worthless.
‘In close second, Americans own 720 gigalitres (1.86 per cent) while British buyers own 414 gigalitres or 1.1 per cent.
‘A string of investors from countries including Canada, France and Singapore own 0.5 per cent or less.’
30
Thanks for that extra detail. It just makes it worse.
Maybe we better check that these “operators” within our political system haven’t sold off our beaches.
Do we still own Bondi, Tamarama.
10
The floods are supposedly caused by an Indian Ocean hot spot.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Natural-disasters/China-floods-and-Japan-downpour-blamed-on-Indian-Ocean-hot-spot
Not a word on a quiet sun creating more low cloud cover.
30
And what causes the Indian Ocean hot spot? CO2? And the Indian Dipole? And El Nino and La Nina and the Gulf Stream and the Humboldt current and all the other weather controlling ocean phenomena? CO2? No one can even begin to model these things and yet whenever the atmosphere does not do what Climate Experts predict, they blame the ocean. So apart from the oceans, CO2 controls our weather significantly? Then why can’t we see any effects? And of course CO2 causes bushfires and floods. And Chinese CO2 is irrelevant.
10
And the reason the BOM had the rainfall prediction completely wrong for this year, the Climate, was the Indian Dipole. Otherwise they would have been right. They have super computers you know and they are very fast and expensive. You should know. You pay for them and the wages of 1600 people. It’s a big business. And sophisticated computer models which cannot predict by far the greatest forces on climate, the oceans with 1400x the heat content of the thin air above and recipient of 75% of all the heat from the sun. So apart from that, they would have been spot on. Computers never lie and they are very accurate.
20
And a single person could have typed in the entire historic Australian records from the early Stephenson boxes prior to 1909 by now. In a few months. But they have been very, very busy for the last 111 years. Perhaps the resources needed to ‘homogenize’ these figures was just too much? And they might just show Australia is cooler now than in 1895, which would not make the IPCC very happy.
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Some are … not BOM’s … obviously.
30
CO2 is also heavily implicated in severe cases of indigestion — it’s a bad actor.
30
Someone mentioned that Houston, Texas floods a lot. It does, and has for a long time. There has been a significant flood in Houston, on average, every six years since its founding in 1836 – including the year of its founding when half of downtown floated away on the flood waters.
Houston was built on rivers and bayous that fill up quickly when it rains, and drain very slowly. About an inch of rainfall causes a one-foot rise in the rivers.
This is mostly because the elevation of the land increases about one foot per mile as you go inland from the coast. Not much gravity assist for getting rain water to drain into the gulf any time soon.
Lack of zoning and municipal rule making (and likely plenty of graft) allowed existing flow basins to be redeveloped into housing and businesses. Further lack of leadership allowed Houston’s extensive freeway system to be built such that it has become de facto levees and water channels. And most of them do not lead straight to the gulf.
There are more reasons, but these are the major ones.
20
Mostly it’s Twitter doing what Twitter does. The ‘latest’ catastrophe videos seem to date from 15th and 16th of July — 12 to 13 days ago. Which appears to have been the flood’s peak. Rainfall (generally) has been nothing too unusual since then, and is decreasing to low level (for Summer that is) in most areas within the 10-day forecast. However Twitter says much more heavy rain is to come and millions are “missing”! And apparently the floods began in the Mississippi valley, then spread to China within a particularly moist shipment of soy beans.
The current 10-day forecast on ECMWF shows rainfall clearing-up over China. Most of the heavy rainfall occurred prior to 3 weeks ago. This is water moving downstream over saturated land with dams at full capacity. i.e. Rivers are behaving as if the dams aren’t there. Cities are then impeding its flow and backing it up. The dam network’s flood mitigation capacity absorbed all the flooding they can, but this does not mean dams will fail, it just means they’ll flood. There’s little chance new solid concrete walls of the dams, or their foundation, will fail. That said, ever bought an electric jug from China? Did it last 12 months? Did you blame yourself for not more carefully reading the “Product of China” label stamped under it?
40
“The current 10-day forecast on ECMWF shows rainfall clearing-up over China. Most of the heavy rainfall occurred prior to 3 weeks ago”
According to cf jingara, Windy.com predicts a massive rain event (~1,000mm) for the Chengdu area over Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
In addition to being a major manufacturing and agricultural region, the Chengdu area is in the upper reaches of the Yangtze catchment. The flood mitigation capacity of the dams upstream of the 3 Gorges Dam is pretty well used up so, if the prediction is correct, expect more serious flooding both upstream and downstream of the 3 Gorges Dam.
00
Nah, not at all, have a look yourself, central China has the lowest rainfall forecast of the region over the next 10 days.
https://i.ibb.co/PG7TKt7/Screenshot-2020-07-29-Windy-as-forecasted.jpg
There’s little that’s unusual within that cumulative China forecast.
Wet, yes. Flooding rainfall areas? Mostly none.
10