It’s Probably Nothing

Three Gorges 32 Comments

Asia Times;

People in cities along China’s Yangtze River, which have already been inundated with water, are now scrambling to shore up embankments and dykes before the Three Gorges Dam releases more water and towns are swamped again by the third big flood this summer.
 
The Yangtze has again become a raging torrent. On Monday evening, stormwater started to pour into the reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam in the Yangtze’s middle reaches at more than 60,000 cubic meters per second.
 
The amount of water is the same as the peak flow rate 10 days ago, which added more than 10 billion cubic meters of water to the mega-dam’s artificial lake.
 
After the National Meteorological Center in Beijing flagged fresh deluge warnings last weekend, the China Three Gorges Group, the dam’s operator, again put itself on a “wartime” footing.

A thread on the catastrophic downstream consequences if the dam fails, both literally and figuratively.

32 Replies to “It’s Probably Nothing”

  2. The water dragon has come.

    And he is famished.

    May he stuff himself to bursting with the flesh of bloodthirsty Han tribesmen.

    Let the world see them be paid the wages of their vanity and iniquity in full.

    Then, maybe, their dupes and collaborators will see that the God of Israel is the One God, not the Red Emperor.

    1. There ain’t nuthin’ in Chinese that translates into “water dragon” in English. Close, but no cigar. I ain’t gonna tell you what it is, but I just laugh at you when you say “water dragon,” you fourth iteration, at least, of AC. (Yes, the grammar mocks your lack of knowledge of anything Chinese.)
      And you can’t speak of the God of Israel as the One God, while you speak of the water dragon as though it were something real.
      P.S. In Cantonese slang, “water dragon head” means fire hydrant.”

        1. You are speaking to Santayana’s Ghost (nee Another Canadian) I presume. He’s the worst racist who infests these pages.

      3. How about Ogopogo? Loch Ness Monster?

        There’s a “Well of the Water Dragon” tea that I like, so I looked into the history a little bit. It looks like it’s another lake monster. But I love learning when a little bit of research and learning gives the wrong answer, so please teach me!

        1. The name 龍井茶 just translates into Dragon Well Tea. The name came from a town over a thousand years ago. It is famous as one of the great Chinese teas, and the best can cost over a hundred dollars an ounce (not any that I use.) There is as much myth associated with tea in China as with wine in Europe. It is generally more pricey anyway, and the restaurants commonly use Jasmine as the green tea. If you go to Dim Sum, the better places will ask for your preferred tea. But I guess if you are not Chinese you better volunteer to tell them first.
          The Chinese Dragon has limited similarity to the British Dragon. The two are identified with each other just because they both fly and have snake like scaly bodies. For one thing, there is no identification of the dragon as the personification of evil in China as there is in Europe. The Chinese Dragon flies without aid of wings, but the British Dragon breathes fire. For that reason some Chinese call the British Dragon fire dragon. (Fire Drakes is a name not unknown in Britain and especially Germany.) Perhaps because the Chinese Dragon also lives underwater in lakes, some people may translate it into English as water dragon. But the Chinese don’t call it that. Anyway, it can go anywhere it wants to, in the sky or underwater.
          https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.xtH8EZQYrZiz5MPhhfCa1QHaEB%26pid%3DApi&f=1
          To be honest, this is the least of Another Canadian’s transgressions. But he pronounces judgement on the Chinese culture having found out very little, imperfectly, about it. For instance, he thinks that anything more than subsistence farming in China came from Europe, which is the utterest nonsense. I gave him a website on technology in the Sung dynasty, but he didn’t respond to that one. At the very least, he should acknowledge that silk is not something the Chinese learned from Europe. Ha ha.

          1. The dragon became the embodiment of evil in Christian legend and myth. Of course a non Christian culture that views good and evil differently (Yin and yang?) would have a different figurative meaning for dragons in their mythology. That doesn’t mean dragons never cause destruction in Chinese lore.

            You went a little overboard when a simple “don’t be a hateful bigot “ would do.

  5. The Three Gorges Dam Pool is at 163 meters (163.1 on 7/28) and slowly rising after several days of high river flows in the upper Yangtze. The upstream river flow is decreasing (43,000 cubic meters per sec), and they are releasing more water from the dam discharge gates (40,000 cubic meters per sec).

    There is still lots of room for floodwaters, over ten meters to the maximum level of 175 meters. That is over 33 feet. But the downstream river water levels are going up too, with Yichang up a half a meter.

    https://journal.probeinternational.org/reservoir-level-3/

    The dam has been in service for years, and it isn’t likely to suddenly fail, but all of China is getting hammered by the monsoon rains. The flooding will really hurt the Chinese people, even if the dam stays intact. The same rains are also hammering many of its neighbors too.

      1. I understand there is a locust swarm the size of a small country that originated in Africa and has been moving northeast. Supposedly it has arrived in China. That was several weeks ago but I haven’t heard anything about it since.

    3. Here are the Three Gorges Dam numbers for July 29:
      3G Dam Pool Height 163.18 meters
      Flood level downstream at Yichang remains steady at 70.53 Meters.
      There are 32500 cubic meters per second of water flowing into the 3G Dam pool, and 40200 cubic meters per second flowing out the discharge gates. Pool level should drop if more water is flowing out, than flowing in to the 3GDam Pool.

  6. No need to worry. If you’re up high enough in the Party, you’re up high enough not to get wet.

  7. That is one very brave woman….I admire her honesty and frankness and her passion for the truth…Steve O

  8. I don’t wish the poor peasants of China more misery than they have … but if that dam breaks it would be a lovely set back for the CCP.

    So break away, three gorges dam.

  10. What will happen if the dam breaks?

    Major loss of face for communism.
    Their walls fall, their economy fails, their dams break, the technology they have is stolen from the west. Their orthodoxy’s only achievement is millions destroyed both in wealth and lives.

  11. There’s another city downriver besides Shanghai. Wuhan. There will be a great flood to wash away the sinners. Seems like I’ve heard a tale like that before.

  12. “It might be about to collapse, what happens if it does”?

    Oh, lets bet on another Billion in Trudeau bucks as Relief Aid, and maybe another firearms ban while he’s at it.

  14. It’s not that it will break, what will happen is when the water level gets higher than the dam walls the water now is able to wash around the dam.
    Concrete doesn’t wash away but the dirt next to it sure will. And as it becomes more saturated it’s ability to bear weight diminishes. All that is needed to get the show started is for a small trickle to create a spillway.
    I’m sure someone else can describe this in the civil engineering parlance better than me.

    1. The Oroville Dam in California should be a good guide on what happens when the water level exceeds the dam’s capabilities. They got lucky, but the site will be a worry for future rains…..forever.

  15. One would think that reaching an absolute peak is not as much of an issue as the long duration of increased pressure.
    And when the pressure recedes things will ‘flex’ back. Then…. next year… BAWOOSH!

    The receding pressure is what causes all the wiggles in the date stamped photographs

    Metal Rat strong against water signs, metal ox, not so much.

  16. There is also the prospect of Reservoir Induced Seismology (RIS) which links earthquakes to large artificial reservoirs like the TGD, so if we do have an earthquake under the dam then that could cause its failure. I recall reading that this was one of the issues raised while it was being built. Since a large portion of the industry is downstream of this dam then bringing the critical industry back to Canada is, well, critical. I would start with the medical section, both drugs and PPE since that would seem to be the most pressing issue right now.

  17. The Three Gorges Dam was designed, constructed and inspected (QC) by one company.
    NO OVERSIGHT.

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