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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China: cracks in the Three Gorges Dam |
| 2010-06-08 |
| In China, cracks are appearing – in the neighbourhood of the massive Three Gorges Dam, the country's great prestige project, and also in the Great Internet Firewall of China, enabling the ominous news to leak out. Three years ago stories were already emerging in the Chinese media about landslides, ecological deterioration and accumulation of algae further down the river. And less and less effort seems to be made to plug the leaks. Recent media reports tell of a series of landslips, minor earthquakes and cracks appearing in roads and buildings along the central section of the Yangtse, between the dam and the city of Chongqing. Almost 10,000 “dangerous sites' have been identified, but many of the people living near them cannot be relocated for lack of money. Two years ago thousands of children died in Sichuan Province because their schools were not resistant to the earthquake which hit the area; in the town of Badong near Chongqing children are attending school in buildings which have been recognised as far more vulnerable. What else can they do? The local authorities can't afford a new one. So the construction was forced through without even what passes in China for proper debate. The number of local people who had to be relocated came to 1.4 million – equivalent to the obliteration of Birmingham. Now it looks like another 300,000 will have to be shifted – add Coventry to that. This, in China, means getting a few weeks' notice to quit and putting up with wherever the authorities see fit to put you. On top of that a large number of historic sites from one of the most ancient cradles of Chinese civilisation had to go. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #12 LOL Charles - "Don't Fear The Reaper"? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-06-08 22:45 |
| #11 FrankG: The person you turn too when wondering if the side-effects are death! *Somebody find theme music* |
| Posted by: Charles 2010-06-08 22:13 |
| #10 I am a CE - the dam is a POS and a danger |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-06-08 18:47 |
| #9 I didn't get the impression the dam itself is in danger, but the land is settling from the massive weight of the water behind the dam. Seems like a backhanded way of saying the dam is in danger, but I'm not a CE. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-06-08 16:16 |
| #8 I didn't get the impression the dam itself is in danger, but the land is settling from the massive weight of the water behind the dam. |
| Posted by: ed 2010-06-08 13:34 |
| #7 Anyone know if they have webcams pointed at the dam? /planning ahead |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2010-06-08 13:16 |
| #6 The stability of a China government has historically been dependent upon the mood of the Yangtze. My question would be whether the volume blowout would wash all that debris out into the ocean, or clog the mouth. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2010-06-08 12:58 |
| #5 Three Gorges Dam holds 32 million acre/feet of water. One acre/foot is 326,000 gallons. Two acre/feet fills an Olympic sized swimming pool. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-06-08 12:06 |
| #4 not too mention crappy chinese construction if it's built like everything else they make. IT's gonna be a washout wonder how much this will cost us? |
| Posted by: chris 2010-06-08 10:58 |
| #3 Too much sand in the concrete? |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-06-08 10:43 |
| #2 Shanghai is downstream. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-06-08 09:29 |
| #1 "We told you so" /Flyash Liberation Army |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-06-08 08:46 |