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In a rare revelation, Beijing has admitted that its 2.4-kilometer Three Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River in Hubei province “deformed slightly” after record flooding. The official Xinhua News Agency quoted the operator of the the world’s largest hydroelectric gravity dam as saying that some nonstructural, peripheral parts of the dam had buckled. The dam was a pet project of the late Premier Li Peng and a monumental pride of the nation when it blocked and diverted Asia’s largest river in 1997. The deformation occurred last Saturday when the flood from western provinces including Sichuan and Chongqing along the upper...

China finally admits Its Three Gorges Dam has ‘deformed slightly’ but claims it happened over the weekend, ignoring reports this happened long ago. The Asian Times reported yesterday: In a rare revelation, Beijing has admitted that its 2.4-kilometer Three Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River in Hubei province “deformed slightly” after record flooding.The official Xinhua News Agency quoted the operator of the the world’s largest hydroelectric gravity dam as saying that some nonstructural, peripheral parts of the dam had buckled. The dam was a pet project of the late Premier Li Peng and a monumental pride of the nation...

Millions have been displaced in China due to recent flooding in the country. Now today China blasted a dam to relieve pressure from the floods. Today far-left Yahoo News reported: State broadcaster CCTV reported the dam on the Chuhe River in Anhui province was destroyed with explosives early Sunday morning, after which the water level was expected to drop by 70 centimeters (more than 2 feet).Blasting dams and embankments to discharge water was an extreme response employed during ChinaÂ’s worst floods in recent years in 1998, when more than 2,000 people died and almost 3 million homes were destroyed....

At least 14 people were killed Saturday in southern China because of seasonal rains and flooding. Three floodgates of the Three Gorges Dam that spans the Yangtze River were opened as the water level behind the massive dam rose more than 50 feet above flood level, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. The dam was holding back about 45 percent of the water, Xinhua said, citing China Three Gorges Corp. Upstream, 11 people had been killed in Chongqing as of Saturday morning, China National Emergency Broadcasting said in an online report, citing the municipal emergency agency. More than 20,000 people...

BEIJING—Engorged with more heavy rains, China’s mighty Yangtze River is cresting again, bringing fears of further destruction, as the seasonal floods that already have left 141 people dead or missing have grown in force since last month.The heavy rains are putting renewed pressure on the massive Three Gorges Dam that straddles the river upstream of the city of Wuhan in Hubei province.The official Xinhua News Agency said the rate of flow in the reservoir behind the dam would hit a record for the year on Friday night, at 55,000 square meters (almost 600,000 square feet) per second.Rivers in the...

The China Meteorological Administration issued a "No. 1 Flood" warning as a second month of rain and earthquakes risks collapse of Three Gorges Dam and the safety of 400 million.   Southern China in June suffered its worst flooding since 1940 with the overflowing of 250 rivers impacting 15 million residents and causing at least 121 people dead or missing.  The world's largest hydroelectric dam, the 1.4-mile-wide and 630-foot-high Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtse River with a 5-trillion-gallon capacity, fully opened its seven massive outlets to begin discharging a record 28 acre-feet per second. But after thirty-one days of rain, a record 16.8 inches falling between...

It's been a disastrous start to the wet season in southern China as rounds of flooding rain and thunderstorms continue to track across the region. Multiple deaths and a massive evacuation for hundreds of thousands of people are being blamed on the persistent deluge. Heavy flooding rainfall tracked across southern China last week and over the weekend. Guizhou, Hunan and Guangxi provinces as well as Chongqing municipality were, and continue to be, some of the hardest hit provinces. The downpours turned streets into rivers and flooded buildings in parts of Chongqing on Sunday. More than 30,000 people have been affected...

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As torrential rains in China continue to wreak havoc on more than 24 provinces, notable Chinese hydrologist Wang Weiluo (王維洛) has questioned the safety of the massive Three Gorges Dam, warning that it could collapse at any moment. In southern China, regional rainstorms and mudslides that began on June 1 have uprooted more than 7,300 houses and affected nearly eight million people as of Monday morning (June 21). The immediate economic loss is estimated at 20.6 billion RMB (US$2.9 billion) by local officials. The nonstop downpours have also raised the Chinese public's concerns over the potential...

The Three Gorges Dam is one of the biggest if not the biggest gravity dam in the world. China is currently seeing record flooding, with three-four days of rain still in the future for the area around the dam. When the dam was under construction, they asked foreign consultants to come in and inspect the dam. The consultants noted poor concrete quality and insufficient rebar supports. The Chinese then kicked the consultants out and called them racist. A good video of the extent of the flooding. The dam itself has taken damage from a 2012 earthquake and is now currently...

... According to an account of the Banqiao Dam by a Chinese journalist writing under the pseudonym Yi Si, on Aug. 8, as workers stared curiously at the retreating water level of the reservoir, a voice in the dark called out: “The River Dragon has come!” And suddenly the dam ruptured, unleashing 600 billion liters of water and destroying an entire village. By Aug. 17, reports Si, 1.1 million people remained trapped by flooding with 50 to 60 percent of food air-dropped into the area floating in the murky waters. It would take weeks for the waters to drain, revealing...

China has acknowledged new problems at the notorious $37 billion Three Gorges Dam. A statement today from the Wen Jiabao and the State Council said the dam had caused severe problems to the environment, shipping, agricultural irrigation and water supplies in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, according to Global Times. Other unspecified problems were mentioned: "Problems emerged at various stages of project planning and construction but could not be solved immediately, and some arose because of increased demands brought on by economic and social development," the statement said. Currently a severe drought is affecting 4 million people in...

BEIJING – Record-high water levels at China's massive Three Gorges Dam have called into question Beijing's claims that the world's largest hydroelectric project could withstand a 10,000-year flood. The water level reached 518 feet (158 meters) Saturday morning, just 55 feet (17 meters) from the reservoir's maximum capacity of 573 feet (175 meters), flood control headquarters in the central province of Hubei told The Associated Press. Water could go higher with China's national weather center issuing a warning Saturday of more torrential rains for the region through 8 a.m. Sunday.

(BEIJING) -- China's government said it evacuated the last town to be submerged under the giant reservoir created by the Three Gorges Dam, bringing the project another step closer to its final height of 578 feet. Authorities have dismantled the last of 988 households in the town of Gaoyang, in central China's Hubei province, and cleared related garbage, ending a process that began four years ago, state-run media reported Wednesday. The residents of Gaoyang join some 1.4 million others who have been evacuated to make way for the world's largest hydroelectric project. With the dam structure already completed, authorities have...

The month-long algae outbreak on a tributary of the Yangtze River, blamed on large numbers of phosphor mines and processing factories, has sent an alert to environmental authorities to raise water treatment standards in the Three Gorges Dam area. Large areas of algae bloomed on June 16 on a 25 km section of the Xiangxi in Xingshan county, Hubei province, forcing thousands of residents to stop drawing water from it, the Xinhua News Agency reported Monday. Cai Qinghua from the Institute of Hydrobiology under the Chinese Academy of Science, said: "This is the first time the Three Gorges Dam area...

The lack of confidence that some of my Chinese friends seem to have in their government comes as a surprise for me. After all, it would seem that by now, Beijing should be an expert at providing assistance for displaced people. We are talking about a government that recently has completed the Three Gorges Project, the world’s largest dam, and in the process has had to relocate up to 4 million people. Many of these people, by no choice of their own, were sent to brand new cities that the Chinese government quickly constructed as the dam’s resevoir began to...

<p>A landslide near China's massive Three Gorges Dam has trapped nearly 200 people and is threatening to overrun much of a village, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Sunday.</p> <p>Emergency workers were trying to rescue the villagers after heavy rains triggered a landslide of 60,000 cubic meters of mud, which swept into a schoolyard and 37 homes in Xiaohe Village of Gaoyang Township in Hubei Province, according to Xinhua.</p>

(BEIJING) -- Water quality in China's Three Gorges reservoir hasn't improved despite an ambitious, multibillion-dollar effort to clean up the lake created by construction of the world's largest dam, according to China's top environmental-regulatory agency. The report reveals the continuing difficulties China's leaders face in managing the Three Gorges Dam, which was supposed to be a flagship national project but instead has generated an array of unforeseen consequences, from water pollution to landslides along the shores of its massive reservoir. According to the study by the State Environmental Protection Administration, $2.5 billion has already been spent on cleanup projects such...

China has done its best to ruin the scenery on the Yangtze River. Smog blots out the sun. Factories dot the shores. And the construction of a giant dam has flooded the Three Gorges, the famed river passage through towering limestone and sandstone cliffs. And yet, one afternoon last spring, a friend and I were staring in quiet wonder from a cruise ship sailing up the Yangtze. We were in a world of green, gliding past cliffs covered in rain-slicked trees and bamboo bushes. Slender waterfalls churned into the jade-colored river. "It is really beautiful. I can only imagine what...

In a new sign of China's water and environmental crisis, cargo boats on the Yangtze have been stranded on river banks as its levels have fallen to a 140-year low. Forty boats have run aground since October on the lower stretches of China's longest river, which is both a water supply and industrial thoroughfare for a region of 400 million people. Government scientists blamed an extended drought in southern and south-western China, which caused widespread water shortages last autumn. But they also admitted that too much water had been held up by the giant Three Gorges Dam, which was built...

(BEIJING) -- Chinese authorities have blamed lax supervision over construction and engineering for a landslide near the massive Three Gorges Dam last month that killed 35, state media reported on Wednesday. Faulty procedures blasting rock at the railway tunnel construction site were the direct cause of the disaster, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a statement released jointly by the Ministry of Railways and the State Administration of Work Safety. "Although the causes of the accident were complicated, the accident revealed management negligence and loose control over engineering and construction ... " the statement said. Most of the victims were travelling...