Chinese engineering still leaves something to be desired. It might be a case of politicians not leaving the engineers alone, or it may be a case of the engineers not quite being up to snuff, but China continues to have engineering problems. It could be they just bite off more than they can chew and refuse to believe there is nothing they can’t tame.
Look at the Three Gorges Damn. I almost want to say “when not if” that dam fails, it will be biblical. I’m being a bit extreme in saying it “will fail”. I don’t really know. But it has been cracking since 1999 and it has been rapidly silting up behind the dam. I’m not talking about problems like the reservoir being a massive garbage dump for everything from gasoline, toxic chemicals to radiological waste. I’m talking about the dam structurally failing.
Just biblical. I think there is a significant chance we will see that dam fail.
Then again, maybe that is the purpose of the dam. A politically acceptable way to kill 50 million rural poor people. Half joking on that one.
I agree. That’s a when , not an if. Because it was admittedly built with low grade concrete.
The Communist Party of China has never needed to invent reasons to kill tens of millions of rural Chinese, they just do it.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=chinas-three-gorges-dam-disaster&page=2
Followed your advice and looked!!!
That is one scary project. Not wide and shallow - but deep and narrow - eventually, the water will find its way out of there.