From the news: "The deformation occurred last Saturday when the flood from western provinces including Sichuan and Chongqing along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River peaked at a record-setting 61,000 cubic meters per second, according to China Three Gorges Corporation, a state-owned enterprise that manages the dam and the sprawling power plant underneath it."
Spillway capacity is 116,000 m3/s (wikipedia) Peak inflow was 61,000 on July 18th. From the news a week ago: The water authority said the water flow in the reservoir would hit 60,000 cubic metres per second, one of the fastest rates ever recorded. I didn't see any more recent news about the flow rate. Nor have I seen any pictures with all the the spillways opened. I don't think it's discharging at capacity, probably because they are trying to control flooding downstream.
I wondered about that as well. I think you are right.Flooding is already a huge issue.28,000 homes destroyed already. If they open all the gates the downstream areas will flood even worse. Of course if they don't open them what happens should the dam start overtopping. If they would even let that happen.I don't think the CCP has any good choices when it comes to the Three Gorges Dam.
The 60 odd billion used to build it was looted mercilessly for who knows how long. To the point where no where near the money that was needed to properly construct the dam was even there to be used.It was stolen,no on e knows how much or where idt went but best guesses are that many partly members got a lot of bonus' for some time at the loss of dam construction
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https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-corruption-dam-idUKBREA1R0AT20140228
Chinese criticise state firm behind Three Gorges dam over graft probe
Li Hui, Ben Blanchard BEIJING (Reuters)
- A scathing report on corruption at the company that built China’s $59-billion Three Gorges dam, the world’s biggest hydropower scheme, has reignited public anger over a project funded through a special levy paid by all citizens.
The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in Yichang, Hubei province is seen in this aerial view taken December 2, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer The report by the ruling Communist Party’s anti-graft watchdog last week found that some officials at the Three Gorges Corporation, set up in 1993 to run the scheme, were guilty of nepotism, shady property deals and dodgy bidding procedures.
Between 1992 and 2009, all citizens had to pay a levy built into power prices across China to channel money to the dam’s construction, a project overshadowed by compulsory relocations of residents and environmental concerns. “The relatives and friends of some leaders interfered with construction projects, certain bidding was conducted secretly ... and some leaders illicitly occupied multiple apartments,” the graft watchdog said on its website(www.ccdi.gov.cn).
The Three Gorges Corporation published a statement on its website on Tuesday saying it would look into the issues the probe raised, and strictly punish any corrupt conduct and violations of the law and party discipline. The accusations - made as part of President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on deep-rooted corruption - have spread rapidly across China’s popular Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, and some of China’s more outspoken newspapers have weighed in too.
Time-Weekly, a newspaper based in southern China’s Guangzhou city, this week revealed further details of the graft. In one case, the newspaper reported, a company bidding for a construction project related to the dam area was told to pay a bribe of one million yuan ($163,200) by members of the hydropower giant’s bidding evaluation panel. “Because of its fully state-owned background ... it was given special ‘protection’, and for years was practically free of supervision and regulations,” the newspaper wrote.
The Southern Metropolitan Daily called in an editorial for the full weight of the law to be applied to a firm that has sucked up so many national resources. “The entire strength of China converged on building this one massive project,” it wrote. “Enormous sums went into it, great powers were bestowed.
But the oversight over these powers which should have been there, was not.” On Weibo, the topic ranks among the most widely discussed subjects. “Did the Three Gorges fund paid by us all on every electricity bill actually go to feed dogs?” wrote one user. “Why did the Three Gorges Corporation, fed and nurtured by us all, become an ‘unifilal son’?” asked another user.
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The looting of dam money was key to the shoddy building of the dam and will haunt the CCP forever.