China: cracks in the Three Gorges Dam ...

[Dogmudgeon]

With nary a mention of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam">Banqiao -- which, after all, is part of the Three Gorges Hydrological System. As an added bonus, this seems to be part of a power struggle within the Party apparatus.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100042402/china-cracks-in-the-three-gorges-dam-so-300000-people-can-wave-goodbye-to-their-homes/">China: cracks in the Three Gorges Dam, so 300,000 people can wave goodbye to their homes

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.

Like many such megaprojects, the Three Gorges was always driven as much by politics as by economics. Its rationale covered irrigation and flood control in the lower Yangtse plain, hydroelectric power generation, which sounds sensible: but objections were bulldozed in the tense political atmosphere of the late 1980s, when the final decisions were made. The dam was the pet project of then prime minister Li Peng, who was involved in the party split which led to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, in which he was the triumphant prime mover. In this context he was not going to back down on the dam, and the debate was closed down.

...

Meanwhile, at the centre, it would appear that there is no great enthusiasm to see this all hushed up. The current supremo Hu Jintao has always taken care not to associate himself with the project. Hu’s faction of the Communist Party is broadly opposed by the “princelings’ faction” – i.e. the rich-kid offspring of the post-Mao leadership – and appears disinclined to pull Li Peng’s chestnuts out of the fire.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100042402/china-cracks-in-the-three-gorges-dam-so-300000-people-can-wave-goodbye-to-their-homes/">Full story at Telegraph.UK (but this is most of it.)

The Banqiao dam disaster of 1975 killed 150-250 thousand people, at least 26,000 by drowning; 26,000 is the official number of immediate deaths by drowning, but those same reports contain individual counts that support figures twice as high, including a commune of 10,000 people that was wiped out, with no suvivors found.

--d!

[underpants]

1. Lemme guess- trouble with the cementing job

we didn't have this trouble when the mob was running those jobs

just sayin'

[Boudica the Lyoness]

2. There goes the neighbourhood.

This is a massive cock-up.

[jwirr]

3. I take it China does not know how to build dams?

[madrchsod]

4. they forgot or ignored their history of dam building

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Retro-active birth control , comin to a village near you.

All the villages and farms which were displaced to build the dam, that they could afford.
But now they can't afford to move people to safety?

[happyslug]

6. I always remember William Mulholland Comment on Concrete Dams "They all leak"

He said that the day before the St. Francis Dam Bust in 1928. Please note the Dam collapse had nothing to do with the leaks. William Mulholland had done everything right in building the dam, but he had built it on what is known today as unstable ground (But that was NOT known in the 1920s when the Dam was built).

My point is leaks are NOT uncommon in dams, the issue is NOT the number of leaks but are the leaks indication of failure or just water leaking through small cracks in the dam that will NEVER become bigger? That is the question and it is NOT even brought up in the Article.

[Nihil]

7. I didn't see it as reporting a literal "leak" ...

> My point is leaks are NOT uncommon in dams, the issue is NOT the number of leaks
> but are the leaks indication of failure or just water leaking through small
> cracks in the dam that will NEVER become bigger? That is the question and it
> is NOT even brought up in the Article.

It is not claiming that there is a crack in the physical structure that is
leaking, it is commenting on both the physical issues surrounding the project
("cracks" in the polished jewel in their crown due to the "landslides, ecological
deterioration and accumulation of algae") and on the increasing number of reports
making it out ("cracks" in what they delightfully described as "the Great Internet
Firewall of China").

> but so far the incidents are far enough apart to prevent collective protest;
> local complaints can still be suppressed without too much trouble.

Given their history on "suppressing complaints", I can quite easily believe
that the first major incident that we find out about will be the last one for
a lot of the downstream population.

:-(

[kristopher]

8. Sure it is.

At least it is trying VERY hard to convey the impression that it is "reporting a literal leak".

The first and last of the opening paragraph sets the tone, "In China, cracks are appearing – in the neighbourhood of the massive Three Gorges Dam ...And less and less effort seems to be made to plug the leaks."

[Nihil]

9. Sorry - I'm obviously reading too many of the words on the page.

> ... in the neighbourhood of the massive Three Gorges Dam, ...

> ... enabling the ominous news to leak out. ...
> And less and less effort seems to be made to plug the leaks (of ominous news).

Hmmm ... I wonder why the Telegraph (being a respected right-wing newspaper)
would want to slant it in such a fashion as people think that the dam itself
is leaking ...?

:-)

[kristopher]

10. Sensationalistism is an ever-present motive.