400 million people downstream the Three Gorges Dam are at risk of their lives The water level at the reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam exceeded the alert level last week.
Heavy rain lasting for 3 consecutive weeks forced China to declare a disaster situation in 24 provinces and cities upstream of the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam.
Rainfall in China is the largest leaf rated in 70 years and millions of people have been affected by floods.
This is the largest flood in China since 1949 and the most serious challenge for the Three Gorges Dam - the world's largest dam - since its construction.
The construction of the Three Gorges Dam began in 1994 and the dam body was completed in 2006.
The Three Gorges Dam is located in Hubei Province, the site of China's largest outbreak of Covid-19.
The dam is 2,335 meters long, 185 meters high, made up of 28 million cubic meters of concrete and over 460,000 tons of steel. The total investment capital for constructing the Tam Hiep Dam is 13.5 billion USD.
The Three Gorges Dam Project was planned by China in 1955. By design, the dam will help control flood water in the Yangtze River, provide electricity and trade.
The Three Gorges Dam has 32 major generators. In 2018, the generating capacity of the Tam Hiep Dam reached 100 billion kilowatt / hour.
However, many people believe that dam construction will destroy natural landscapes, monuments and above all, terrible consequences if the dam break occurs.
The International Rivers (IR) once called the Three Gorges Dam a "model of disaster" when a dam had to store too much water.
IR said that China should build more dams to store the water of the Yangtze - the third longest river in the world - and reduce the risk of dam failure.
According to the latest information of the WYD, floods have injured about 495,000 people, 39 people were killed. The lives of more than 8.5 million Chinese are affected.
“The flood storage capacity of the Three Gorges Dam is limited. Don't put too much hope on the Three Gorges Dam, ”said Zhao Yunfa, the deputy chief engineer at the coordination center of the Three Gorges Dam.
Zhang Shuguang - Director of the Three Gorges Group - said that flood control measures in the Yangtze cannot rely solely on the Three Gorges Dam alone.
Earlier, Wang Weiluo - a Chinese hydrologist - questioned the flood storage capacity of the Three Gorges Dam.
Mr. Wang said that because the Three Gorges Dam was completed in an urgent time, it did not ensure technical safety. Mr. Wang expressed concern when recalling the substandard cracks and layers found at the Three Gorges Dam.
China's Vice Minister of Water Resources, Ye Jianchun, also admitted that the Three Gorges Dam does not play a good role in flood control while the water level of 148 rivers in China has exceeded the safety threshold.
In 2019, some images show that the body of the Three Gorges dam is warping due to water storage. If the dam failure occurs, the consequences will be catastrophic for people downstream.
An estimated 400 to 600 million people live downstream of the Three Gorges Dam. What happens when the dam break happens, you have the answer.
In Anhui province, the government spent 1 million yuan on flood control, flood rescue and buying necessities for the people.
Many counties in Guangdong province are almost engulfed by flood waters. Unsafe bamboo rafts have become the main means of transportation for residents and rescue workers.
Guizhou and Chongqing are the two areas most affected by the floods, hundreds of thousands of people here forced to leave their homes to evacuate.
Heavy rains in the upstream area of the Yangtze lasted for half a month and showed no signs of abating.
According to the Chinese flood control agency, heavy rains will continue to occur in Guangxi, Hunan, Guangdong and some other southern provinces.
It is estimated that floods cost China US $ 3.4 billion. About 861,000 hectares of agricultural land were damaged.
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