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Water levels at China's giant Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river are inching closer to their maximum after torrential rains raised inflows to a record high, official data showed on Friday.
With 75,000 cubic metres per second of water flowing in from the Yangtze River on Thursday, the reservoir's depth had reached 165.6 metres (543 feet) by Friday morning, up more than two metres (6.6 feet) overnight and almost 20 metres (65.6 feet) higher than the official warning level.
The maximum designed depth of China's largest reservoir is 175 metres (574 feet).
Authorities raised the discharge volume to a record 48,800 cubic metres per second on Thursday to try and lower water levels, and they might have to increase it again to avoid the possibility of a dangerous overflow.
Wuhan, Nanjing, and Shanghai are all downstream...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Sulla on Saturday August 22 2020, @04:41AM (3 children)
I have found the government narrative on this interesting as well, the following are the changes over time since this began.
1. This is a thousand year dam, nothing can stop it
2. This is a 500 year dam facing a 200 year flood, no concern
3. Why aren't Americans concerned the hoover dam will fail? Its weak and they should be concerned. US government lies say it is strong.
4. This is a 100 year dam facing a 200 year flood. It isn't the dams fault
5. You cannot blame the party for this, the engineers did not consider a 200 year flood
6. You are here
Again, hope it all works out and the rains subside. But as I mentioned in the previous post they lowered the output even though downriver can take more flooding, why are they lowering output when input is increasing and water level behind the dam is increasing? Hopefully this is planned for some reason we don't know and it isn't that they can't open more spillways due to cavitation.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Saturday August 22 2020, @05:33AM
But as I mentioned in the previous post they lowered the output even though downriver can take more flooding, why are they lowering output when input is increasing and water level behind the dam is increasing?
What are you talking about? From the article summary: "Authorities raised the discharge volume to a record 48,800 cubic metres per second on Thursday to try and lower water levels, and they might have to increase it again to avoid the possibility of a dangerous overflow."
They aren't lowering the output, they're lowering the water levels (or trying to at least) by *raising* the discharge volume.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Saturday August 22 2020, @02:07PM
Another part of the narrative we are told we MUST ignore is the meme of Chinese buildings collapsing because the concrete is a thin shell around dirt and cardboard and trash and general landfill instead of being solid.
So WHEN (not if) the dam collapses and its found to be constructed far under specification, the Chinese will freak about trying to save face that its not example number million of shitty Chinese QA/QC.
My experience with Chinese QAQC both as consumer and as engineer is you'll get about 80% of what you paid for. So its trivial to "overpay" maybe 200% of QAQC and get aerospace reliable iPads. Or you can assume they'll save face, they won't if there's a buck to be made, and you get twist drlls at walmart that unroll when used, plug in power supplies with all safety/RFI features unpopulated or replaced by jumpers, etc.
The problem with designing a 1000 year dam in China is QAQC plus corruption means you're really only getting a 10 year dam, and they can duct tape that together for awhile, but its eventually failing as sure as the sun rises every morning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @08:27PM
Please no not less, what is needed is more rain, harder rain storms, longer downpours. That is what is needed, even more rain above the dam.