So this came up a week or two ago and it seemed the dam (the world’s largest dam) was doing it’s job. Now the CCP is strangely making assurances this dam won’t collapse… A collapse like this would be a humanitarian disaster. Anyone have credible information?
https://www.theledger.com/news/20200718/floods-kill-14-in-china-as-water-peaks-at-three-gorges-dam
Looking at their recent track record we should awesome the dam is fucked
Tell me that was not some autocorrect typo. I think we should start using awesome as a verb.
At least 14???
Dude, hundreds have died
The Nationalists did this (with a smaller dam) as a way to stop the Japanese. A couple hundred thousand starved to death
Note: I’m someone who generally supports the Chinese Government
They did stop up the watershed of the better part of a continent, so I hope their math was good. Or at least better than it has been recently.
I watched a few documentaries on its construction and purportedly they engineered and built the fucking shit out of that thing, so it probably won’t topple or burst.
Probably.
Lol … yea … should have been assume
are you questioning Asian math abilities 
I am! Actually, their engineering.
All the smart ones come over here anyways. 
You know that. You’re at school with them!
Really though, the longer term dynastic/empire building mindset is great for a country, but can be REALLY REALLY bad for the people.
It’s an entirely different mindset than contemporary American culture and mindset.
The facts of a dam that has fairly unregulated building upstream and downstream is that in times of peak rainfall you have to decide whether you want detain water and flood upstream, while not flooding downstream… or if you want to keep reservoir levels below flood stage, but possible put downstream above flood stage.
I would not doubt for a second that more than a few corners were cut by the contractors and material suppliers who built the dam. Engineering is probably solid as it is much more resilient to shady dealings, and its easy enough to provide a solid design and then off-the-record tell the contractor/builder where some corners can be cut.
It’s good. Very good. They’re very smart, disciplined and hard working (no shit) and very focused on copying stuff. And the work ethic is second to none. For example, one of their lead engineers on a big infrastructure project got a half-day off for the Chinese New Year as a special perk.
I’ve seen their imperial construction projects in Africa first hand, and while the workmanship is very good, I’m slightly concerned about long term durability of said edifices.
I hope so. It’s a tremendous achievement, but man, the consequences of a failure would be incalculable.
Not as severe as backyard furnaces.