What Would Happen if the Three Gorges Dam Failed?

[@humphrey4976]

Finally the Yangtze River Dolphin will have its revenge

[@StatusFX3]

Indeed

[@BrunoDias1234]

the tibet dam is gone to be larger or thats what i heat

[@stariyczedun]

Quite

[@coweatsman]

@@BrunoDias1234 That dam will be near the disputed border region with India. Real political. The Yarlung River becomes the Brahmaputra when it flows into India and joins the Ganges River. A dam would give China the ability to turn on and off water to India and Bangladesh. The Yarlung river goes around a great bend and descends 2,000 metres in a short distance. The Chinese want to build a tunnel shortcut across the river and convert all the potential energy into hydroelectric energy. The dam would be near Nyinchi which was recently connected with Lhasa by railroad and will be connected to Chengdu in 2030.

[@Exoskel2]

The return of the Yangtze river dolphin Nature is healing

[@camerongooch9606]

Simon says humanitarian crisis, I'm hearing significant tactical target

[@the_gask6070]

The Funny, you might say

[@GavaloreUK]

Go ahead, break International Humanitarian Law. Let's see how quickly the world realises that China isn't the bad guy.

[@eversor10]

Strategic

[@davidtuttle508]

More of an Operational / Strategic target.

[@markstott6689]

​@GavaloreUK For a nation state to attempt the destruction of the Three Gorges Dam, I would 100% expect that China has already initiated military action. In that situation, the attacked nation state won't give a damn about international law. I think you're being idealistic at best.

[@erasmus_locke]

-China invades Taiwan- Taiwan - "I'm about to do a pro-gamer move."

[@goldenhate6649]

China has already said destroying the dam would mean nuclear war, so, probably not. Taiwan would be stupid to engage in nuclear war when their island is only a few nukes wide.

[@echomande4395]

@@goldenhate6649 That said, the Three Gorges Dam is probably high on most chinese countervalue targets in various nuclear war scenarios. In a similar scenario, the same is almost certainly the case for Egypt's Aswan High Dam. To me it is no coincidence that the Camp David accords of 1979 were signed only a few years after the Aswan High dam was completed.

[@alfredgarrett5065]

DO IT

[@gideonmele1556]

@@goldenhate6649sometimes the threat of action is more powerful than the action itself

[@thwingerpodthvet4302]

@@goldenhate6649the us also said they would back Taiwan if China invades, and the us has CONSIDERABLY more nukes

[@liamme54]

Simon briefly mentioned Dai Qing but her accomplishments can never be understated. This is a woman who wrote a book going against the narrative of arguably the most totalitarian nation to ever exist and was held in such high regard in the local community that the police turned up a day before she was officially to be taken into custody, warning her to escape the country. "As a citizen of a country, I cannot leave her. And I have to criticise it in order to build a more perfect and stronger one." I hope I never have kids but if they had half the strength of that woman, I’d be a proud father.

[@sid2112]

If you don't want kids, then nature is done with you. You're moving solely on inertia.

[@TheUncannyObserver]

China is not the most totalitarian nation to ever exist lmao. Why would you even say that, when North Korea literally exists right at this exact moment.

[@mfallen2023]

@@TheUncannyObserver China is AWFUL

[@Andyvan92110]

I think you probably meant to say "can never be OVERstated".

[@Freak80MC]

Stuff like this is exactly the purpose of having free speech, not to bring other's down, but to enact better change in the world.

[@ThuderDragon2408]

If Douglas MacArthur was still alive he’d be grinning with anticipation

[@p.strobus7569]

If Arthur MacArthur’s son were still alive, he’d be drooling like the nepobaby he always was.

[@derpynerdy6294]

Nuke em

[@xsailor85]

But he would have been stopped because it would hurt us economically just as much as them.

[@derpynerdy6294]

@@xsailor85 “i dont care! hit the button!”

[@mfallen2023]

Man, he was so right... and got fired for being right.

[@Idiodyssey87]

Short answer: Bad. Long answer: Real fucking bad.

[@Daginni1]

Unless you are the rest of the world. Then you have a party

[@AuntieTrichome]

Doom answer: you don’t want to know.😂

[@BrunoDias1234]

they are planing to build a larger dam in the tibet

[@olm8829]

@@Daginni1it would most likely start an almost unprecedented economic crisis, so.. I am not so sure about having a party.

[@huwale]

@@Daginni1 a party for what 🧐🧐

[@namehere1861]

Added context to the "water is loud" intro. The breaking of the ice dam on Lake Missoula during the ice age and following rush of water is speculated to be the loudest non-explosive noise humans have ever heard. (Waaay louder than you think it was).

[@Cronus716]

Were any humans around to hear it?

[@Alzurath-metal1]

@@Cronus716 Yes, mostly in Africa, but also in places like New Zealand, and in eastern/southern China.

[@darodaredevil]

I believe volcano explosions like Mt Toba were louder

[@firstnamelastname6216]

That's why he said non-explosive.​@@darodaredevil

[@DaveEtchells]

@@darodaredevilYes, he specified non-explosive. Mt, Toba would have been a *lot* louder :-)

[@stephenhoward6829]

I love that quote "According to OFFICIAL REPORTS, none of the sensors have indicated any signs of stress..." You've got to know that "Official reports" and ACTUAL TRUTH are two different things in china.

[@mocast0974]

ikr. The truth is whatever Xi and the CCP say it is.

[@tonfleuren3536]

Sounds a lot like the sensors in the Oceangates Titan submarine.

[@jergar3953]

This is an issue with all governments

[@olm8829]

@@jergar3953I agree, but I must say that communists are especially notorious for downplaying all sorts of disasters and dangers to their people. Just remember how “great” they have handled Chernobyl.

[@InquisitorXarius]

@@jergar3953True, but its particularly bad in Tyrannies like China.

[@blackthornewriter]

Of course China builds all their infrastructure with incredible quality control and never fudges data and their buildings are never Tofudreg

[@herseem]

Exactly, and the serious concerns of technical specialists are never overridden and suppressed in an effort to keep up appearances for the sake of arbitrary politically-driven targets.

[@dave7830]

Came across a report last year about the shortcuts taken in, complete elimination of systems installed to allow removal of the heat generated by the curing of massive amounts of concrete. If not cooled properly the concrete will not cure as it should, will not obtain the designed strength and crack. The Hoover Dam required 4 years of refrigerated water cooling

[@TheRoyalWe762]

More people died in China from industrial accidents then are injured in America.

[@tyler5914]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@jmanj3917]

0:07 ...so you turn off the autoplay on KZbin to stop it from happening again, and you go back to sleep, vaguely hoping that Simon hasn't taken over the Entire thing yet...

[@chrissyloren3669]

Same here

[@johnwhorfin5150]

the strange thing about rivers is that most of them have flood plains along their length which are part of the ecosystem so when you dam it up people tend to get complacent when it comes to buildings and infrastructure so when rain is heavyer the river still uses the flood plains for relief

[@Bob_Smith19]

Or you have the situation in the US where they allow building on floodplains. And in a lot of cases they have removed them from maps entirely. Then it rains and there’s a ton of damage, people don’t learn, they rebuild and it’s rinse and repeat over and over. Insurance rates have skyrocketed because of this stupidity.

[@joelau2383]

China also build simple dam to protect the flood plains before farming in them. These enclosed flood plains also serve as emergency reservoir that they would blow the dam up and flood the reservoir to protect populated area like town and city in emergency.

[@SeanMacRSA]

​@Bob_Smith19 It isn't just in the US that such stupidity has occurred. South Africa too, and then they blame global warming and issues for the ahort-sighted abuse of our planet.

[@aliquotidian]

​@Bob_Smith19 As a lifetime resident of South East Queensland, I can say the "forgetting " sets within about 20 years of the last catastrophic flood, and total amnesia and complacency by 30. Add in a new larger dam downstream of the original, and suddenly everyone is convinced the place is flood proof. When the next extreme event came through 44years later, accusations of mismanagement and incompetence were the main response. This despite observations that the main rainfall area was downriver of both dams ... Still shake my head at the wilful ignorance of people, especially the ones who bought property in a place called Basin Pocket. The name tells you, literally, the lay of the land. At the peak of flooding, the entire suburb went under.

[@notahumanbeing6892]

we really can’t just learn about our natural geology and work with and around it instead of repeatedly trying and failing to force nature to our whims. We are not stronger than nature, we must accept that or we will continue having these disasters and needless deaths.

[@OmegaInfinityAlpha]

As someone who read World War Z back in the day, this question has irrationally haunted me for years

[@johnathan651]

That is EXACTLY what I thought about when I saw the title!!!

[@Curious-Mr.-Lee]

Just make sure whererver you live is atleast 250' above sea level. No worries flooding wise. Tsunami wise? There is nowhere safe lol

[@adamalton2436]

The book was surprisingly predictive of the future.

[@jacobp8294]

@@Curious-Mr.-Lee tsunami wise, it's called living inland.

[@Irresposible]

As someone who has not read World War Z, i still wondered

[@retireeelectronics2649]

Maybe the question should be, are all the large dams upstream of the Three Gorges dam safe also. Would the loss of one of those dams take out the Three Gorges dam?

[@paperburn]

Yes, the simple answer is yes.

[@Loubie2005]

@@paperburnno it isn’t 😂

[@rebelfighter5249]

I'd say a multiple dam failure upstream would do the trick. So yes.

[@josephfisher426]

Probably not because the contents of any upstream reservoir would be distributed along the way: at the next dam the water level will be just a little higher and the forces exerted would be only a little greater.

[@paperburn]

@@josephfisher426 I wonder why they call it a gorge, personally I think it will do to this is what Taiwan said they do if attacked.but truth be told I am no expert

[@benharsch9340]

Regardless of whether or not it was produced to alleviate downstream flooding or not, it is not being used that way. They've maintained water levels that have routinely approached max seemingly every flood season and have been regularly forced to expel excessive amounts of water to avoid dam failure. I hear they don't notify downstream residents reliably either, and that most residents expect that the dam is more focused on energy production than flood mitigation (and looking at the water level chart over the years, its hard to argue with that).

[@TheZorch]

If the TGD is built to the same quality as most concrete structures in China, it isn't a matter of if the dam will fail, but when. It is basically a ticking time bomb.

[@Jason-fm4my]

They were talking about this on The China Show. They were saying that the CCP may or may not have built the dam very well, but the government's upkeep budget for the dam as a prestige project is near unlimited and there is no short or medium term risk of catastrophic failure.

[@TheDanEdwards]

"The China Show"

[@balyboo5856]

And they are probably correct. You can track the water level and they managed to get it down significantly despite the heavy rains. Means flooding huge areas downstream but destroying the livelyhood of some millions of people is really no issue for this government i think. And a nice side effect, all the nice stuff you can build up again and sell the victims afterwards.

[@arthas640]

@@balyboo5856 Yeah as shitty as Chinese quality is generally, this is their prestige project and much like the USSR they have the ability to produce bespoke, high quality products in limited quality even when the other 99% of what they make is shit. Similarly their "tofu dreg" construction largely fails because of little to no upkeep. It's not likely to fail since the CCP would keep throwing money at this project no matter what if for no other reason then what it represents: it's not JUST a megaproject and not JUST a prestige project and not even JUST a power plant, in Chinese culture the "mandate of heaven" is often closely tied to floods and droughts, IE the two things this dam is fixing. That's also why Mao himself saw a dam like this as key to the CCPs continued rule. Flooding a million homes to protect the dam may even seem counter intuitive but it's still _controlled_ flooding meaning the CCP still controls the waters and still has the mandate of heaven, and they'll still keep maintaining this thing even if it meant starving their citizens.

[@cindygr8ce]

I saw someone else comment about if ccp invades Taiwan the tgd should be target 1

[@mocast0974]

The weight of the entire project is putting pressure on the tectonic plate below. Nature doesn't care about our "prestige projects." In fact, she's a vindictive bitch and totally unpredictable.

[@Paetaor]

It's all about trusting the workmanship of the sub-sub-contractors that made the dam. Hopefully better than a lot of the bridges, roads and apartments recently built.

[@Kurt1969]

💯

[@poptart2nd]

i haven't heard anything about china's infrastructure collapsing. Can't say the same for the US.

[@Deadassbruhfrfr]

​@@poptart2ndpathetic cope

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

@@poptart2nd really, you've never heard anything about china's infrastructure collapsing? Residential and commercial buildings in China are notoriously quick, cheap, and dangerous. "Luxury" skyscrapers with cracks climbing up from the foundation a decade after construction, whole buildings just falling over before even being occupied... it's astonishing.

[@boballmendinger3799]

@@poptart2nd lol.

[@acmelka]

Interesting to be referencing 2020 floods when all sluice gates are currently open. The flooding going on right now is historic

[@kennethloki7011]

This was probably filmed weeks ago. Editing takes a bit.

[@ronmorrell9809]

@acmelka While the current situation is bad, I think the dam is providing some benefit. The article I read said 60% of the inflow is being passed through the dam. This means 40% is being retained by the dam. Comparing 100% with 60%, it appears without the dam, the flow would be almost twice as much (100÷60 = 167% = 1⅔). Certainly not perfect.

[@Yomotomen]

@@ronmorrell9809 that's just a stopgap though, because limiting flow means raising water levels, if the flooding continues, it will go to 100%, also, depends on how much they've lied, ccp isn't exactly known for being honest

[@BTSmith-lp5pe]

Didn't 2020 have like half a dozen or more dams fail within that dam network?

[@gilliesiut2332]

I was thinking the same thing. At the end he’s like “who knows when the next major flood will be?” I can answer that. It’s right now Simon.

[@CN-BRA]

2004: Three Gorges Dam will collapse. 2008: Three Gorges Dam is collapsing. 2012: Three Gorges Dam is collapsing. 2016: Three Gorges Dam is collapsing. 2020: Three Gorges Dam is collapsing. 2024: What Would Happen if the Three Gorges Dam Failed?

[@real5609]

If China attacks Taiwan or Siberia it would not be a dam failure, it would be a dam attack

[@minotaurbison]

the number of channels you narrate has got to be some kind of world record... either that or you have an amazing number of doppelgangers

[@Umski]

Pre-emptive Plainly Difficult future video I expect 😮

[@CaptainFSU]

lol

[@tuvelat7302]

Huzzah! another Plainly Difficult fan! Yes, I expect that the state of the dam is not so cheery and stable as Simon has presented it.

[@herseem]

The joy of meeting fans of channel A on channel B. I've also seen some very concerning allegations about time pressures to finish it and quality control inspectors being neutralised when they raised problems - Exactly the kinds of issues that lead to eventual catastrophe, and also exactly how projects run by de-facto dictatorships tend to be run, such as the construction of Chernobyl. Even the KGB were warning about how that was being built. It seems to be built into Chinese culture over a long period of time that the saving-face and superficial appearance of superiority aspect tends to override many other things, such as doing things properly. And also, let's remember that the biggest hydro-electric dam failure of all time that was one of the biggest man-made catastrophes of all time, and possibly the biggest, was a Chinese dam.

[@lonnyyoung4285]

​@herseem I do enjoy John's videos.

[@johnkeller2952]

They really did build themselves a Sword of Damocles

[@Toliman.]

Not just that, they also keep knocking the sword around a few times a year when it's rain season by holding the water back for economic reasons. The principle behind the dam was sound, but the reality is that you're storing a 'lake' of water in typically mountainous area, which creates more rain and evaporation, so the water system is lasting longer, and there's longer rain periods. They've made it worse by also regulating some dams as hydro-electric producers to make money, so there's going to be friction for dam maintainers to avoid following safety advice. After all, they don't live in the counties that will be flooded in the event they release the water, so they can't be held liable. These safety measures are managed locally, not by the country, so typically because when there's excess water in a wide river system, it has to be slowly drained to prevent accumulation/flooding. A normal conservation practise would be to regulate the dams so that excess water can be moved before the rain event, in case of emergency or heat-wave conditions causing 2 weeks of rain in the area, sic. What makes it worse is that the bigger dams do not announce flood release periods, or handle release periods by allowing downstream dams to accommodate the water load. So what ends up happening is that already-flooded riverways overspill into city areas because there's no notification of these events. Also to prevent river areas around beijing from being subject to high river levels, as it's surrounded by hills, and also outlying flood plains which made it a separate agrarian area, useful for a military focused nation to have their own independent supply of food while there's multiple warfronts happening to reduce food intake. Dam release periods are unannounced due to military censoring, likely because an official water release requires soldiers to be sent in to handle emergencies, sic. So the recent extended flooding of 10+ cities in August this year, was due to dam flood releases not being announced, happening around midnight to look like regular events, but they had the downside of being unplanned. So downstream residents in the area faced flooding and water levels raising at 1am to 2am while sleeping, at times 2-8m above the city's flood warning levels in a prolonged surge period.

[@henrywang3977]

​@@Toliman. The terrain behind three gorges dam is not ideal for using as a water reservoir. So that the water storage behind that dam is actually on par with the hoover dam's. Dispite much greater river flow and investment.

[@StephenWest-t2v]

Not at all

[@sidorgeorge]

You know, couldn't happen to a nice country! Hubris of the Chinese leadership. But in reality, the leadership care nothing about even several million people dying. They have what, 1.5 billion people, plenty of people for cannon fodder so to speak. As long as the dam is beneficial to the "Country", almost no thought it wasted on how it affect people, except to make sure that not too many die, and that no too many know what's really happening.

[@taetannim3581]

Omg, that's so needlessly cold-blooded!

[@JackTheRifter07]

Your delivery was so spot on at the beginning that I honestly googled to see if there was in fact a collapse that I had not heard about. Bravo

[@ValeriePallaoro]

me too, just now! I did not like that, at all.

[@pootyting3311]

Simon did a War of the Worlds broadcast scare on some people it seems. 🤪

[@tealkerberus748]

There's been a certain amount of discussion in the War channels about how if Russia loses in Europe, China will take East Siberia. I reckon Russia already has plans to use Three Gorges to give the Chinese government something more urgent to deal with than territorial expansion to the north.

[@KidHorn7001]

What would the Chinese do with east Siberia?

[@tealkerberus748]

@@KidHorn7001 mine it! It's full of natural resources that have been incredibly expensive to access in the past because it's kind of cold and a long way from Moscow, but with global warming the cold is going to be less and less of a concern, and China doesn't care if it's a long way from Moscow. Up north they'll have to wait to see what's left when the permafrost finishes collapsing, but the southern areas closer to the current Chinese border are becoming very accessible for them - far more so than they ever will be for Moscow.

[@kenji214245]

I am not sure China wants Russia to completely fail. They need them as a balancing act on the geopolitical board. So while they might "take" some parts of Siberia it will be during negotiations with Russia to keep them strong enough to not fold to the west. I think its even been mentioned already that such negotiations are taking place for some smaller areas of siberia.

[@95ellington]

You know that can't happen, china will supply Russia with weapons if it looks like Russia is losing. If china let Russia fall, china will be alone on the world stage with no allies, and is basically the next on the chopping block.

[@Nichole-wd5ce]

1. Russia won't lose in Europe 2. China doesn't need to "conquer" Siberia from a NUCLEAR power, they simply can rent or buy whatever they need. 3. Why would Russia trigger a nuclear war with China? You clearly have no idea of what you're talking about.

[@mikenuyen4441]

Can't help but think that there are a heck of a lot of eggs in one basket wrapped up in that dam.

[@captainspaulding5963]

I mean, that basically describes every dam in the world. They ALL stop a massive amount of water that would destroy just about everything down stream

[@jakeg3126]

It’s China; they don’t care. The government ignores and denies the numerous human rights violations going on. They falsely report statistics on things so they look better than they are at everything. Citizens are somewhat lucky and with the almost no freedom of the press the everyday citizen doesn’t know or see how bad they have it on a continuous basis. They just know to hate or look down the US, Europe, and other countries

[@Kahless00]

It was widely talked about a few years ago when huge chunks of the dam started breaking off the dam.

[@breannathompson9094]

Yes but now its happening again compounding any damage that they didnt repair, they will have to watch really close.

[@Loubie2005]

Which never happened lol

[@herbb8547]

I hate it when that happens.

[@gomahklawm4446]

Never happened. Source: I live here now. Much better than the "woke" west....

[@Loubie2005]

@@gomahklawm4446 yep, just stayed in China for a month, people got it so wrong 😂😂

[@justandy333]

That's so nice of the CCP. An expert expresses serious safety concerns and he's jailed for his troubles. Lovely.

[@matthewshannon6946]

His concerns were "inconvenient "...😂

[@okwatever3582]

A saying goes: if there is trouble proposed, get rid of the proposer, you won’t have to worry about it later on.

[@Hurricayne92]

Wait didn't Boeing, a US compnay, do the exact same thing?

[@robotnoir5299]

@@okwatever3582 It worked for the CEO of the Titan Submarine. His submarine successfully dove down to the Titanic 13 times, and he'll never hear about any "failure".

[@xcel5203]

It's never crashed and it never will ; so much wistful thinking .

[@ZMB-on5ub]

The CCP will make discussing the dam illegal before making actual changes. Just a guess.

[@razgriz1258]

I've been on r/Sino, they already did

[@AuntieTrichome]

Soon it will be illegal to talk, period.

[@obinator9065]

@@AuntieTrichomethat's what happens in state-capitalist systems

[@Ganymede559]

@@obinator9065 Ch y na isn't capitalist in the true sense of the word, or they'd be like Anglosphere countries instead of an orwellian state.

[@TheStephaneAdam]

@@Ganymede559 The "state" in "state capitalism" is important. China is basically run by a huge megacorporation dictating the rules to everybody else. And note western countries are drifting towards China in this instance, Florida deleted most mentions of climate change from state laws.

[@HappilyHomicidalHooligan]

The Sedimentation is an even larger problem than you suggested because all that sediment is settling in the Three Gorges Reservoir...and every cubic meter of sediment that settles is one less cubic meter of water that can be held by the dam...if they don't start MASSIVE dredging fairly soon, that next massive storm is going to cause serious problems...and not just with flooding down stream of the dam because they had to open the flood gates sooner than they wanted to...eventually so much sediment will build up that the flood gates simply can't release as much water as the storm is dumping in the reservoir and the dam will be overtopped by the water and that causes HUGE problems ultimately resulting in at least a partial collapse of the dam itself... The Hoover Dam actually had to deal with excessive Sediment build up recently, fortunately, they saw it soon enough that they were able to dredge the sediment and solve the problem...at least for now...

[@CultureCrossed64]

"The cities would be evacuated far before any danger." Are you *sure* about that?

[@NeutralGenericUser]

- Ignorant Westerners joking about how China handles civilian casualties during catastrophe - Meanwhile, COVID response between China and the West. LMAO

[@kjj26k]

Freaking how?! Those cities are so big that is probably functionally impossible, even if they tried!

[@robotnoir5299]

The CCP are known for being honest and up-front about potential issues they've created. ;)

[@oblivionsa7973]

What cities? There were never any cities there. Just look on this map I happen to have that shows no cities being there.

[@pirobot668beta]

It's not a matter of 'how' but 'where' people are evacuated to...millions of people relocated to what is essentially rural farmland. Feeding the multitudes, housing the multitudes...I don't see the Chinese attempting such and undertaking, when the chance of failure is so high. There will be no alarms when the dam fails, no evacuations....better for a clean slate and all that.

[@jeromereinhart4946]

NCD will love this. Top tier Damposting

[@jamesrush5367]

Came here looking for comrades lmao

[@MegaWizarrd]

Oh hell yeah!

[@TheMaroun101]

Hell yeah, another episode for me to listen to on my way to work. I love the content simon and the team

[@tapejara1507]

Ok how many channels is this guy. This is wild. He keeps showing up.

[@TheOfficialPatriarchy]

The US Army Corp of Engineers reviewed the design before it was built and said it was destined for failure because of the issues with the sediment. If it breaks casualties are estimated as high as 400 million. The dam may be solid concrete but the Chinese are known for unbelievably poor quality concrete, shoddy framework & reinforcement, and a "chabuduo" (close enough) work ethic, resulting "tofu dreg" construction responsible for countless infrastructure collapses.

[@TheUncannyObserver]

Did you not listen to the video at all? It's holding back the third largest watershed *in the entire world*. No tofu dreg dam would be able to withstand that for even a year without collapsing, if it even survived construction. Whatever problems the dam might have in the future, it's definitely a solid piece of construction.

[@TheOfficialPatriarchy]

@@TheUncannyObserver I both watched the video and am familiar with the history and poor quality of construction in the country. While the Three Gorges Dam as a vanity project may receive better than average maintenance, poor project foresight & management, along with the corruption & grift inherent to their system, already has and will continue to cause problems resulting from the project.

[@Emphasis213]

​@@TheOfficialPatriarchyAnd hear you are using countless things made in China that didn't break. Yet you're talking about quality issues. The hypocrisy is amazing. And to say it's a vanity project? The point of it is to make a crap load of energy and they succeeded in doing so.

[@TheOfficialPatriarchy]

@@Emphasis213 The word is "here"... and I actively avoid Chinese products, precisely because they are low quality and break, not to mention often poisonous, like leaded plastic in children's toys and anti-freeze in toothpaste. And yes, it is a vanity project, like all their largest projects, because they are made with both Mao's philosophy of conquering nature and an enduring desire to prove they are better than the West. The problem is they operate on a "fake it til you make it" mentality.

[@TheOfficialPatriarchy]

@@Emphasis213 I actively avoid goods from said country, precisely because of low quality. Also, you clearly do not understand the philosophical underpinnings of their motivations for the grand and/or showy structures they attempt to build, nor the frequency of their failure. I would recommend doing some more research.

[@atillathehungry3145]

Changqing is upriver. The water from a burst dam will not flow uphill.

[@crazyeyez1502]

I caught that too...

[@scalkins1979]

Weird. British accents only sound smart.

[@crazyeyez1502]

@@scalkins1979 he's only reading a script that someone else wrote.

[@scalkins1979]

@@crazyeyez1502I’m shocked. I would have never guessed that.

[@Ganymede559]

It'd be upriver when a landslide occurs?

[@baa0325]

And of course, the most unpredictable worry: even if things are going to hell, will the government say anything? The world already saw how that works in late 2019.

[@joelau2383]

Funny, Chinese have exactly the opposite view, because they know how good this dam is and it is their proof that they can believe CCP gov instead of western media. Especially, WHO report proof they have much lower excess/expected death ratio than most other countries.

[@MGAFFY]

Just recently they had 11 of the 22 flood gates open because of the record amount of rain they've gotten this year so far

[@bifrost1377]

Is anyone else curious why there is a Brontosaurus standing on a flooded rock at 23:49? It is another miracle or disaster of the dam? :)

[@EventHorizon13]

I was just guna comment that ,am to slow ay

[@kennethdarron4852]

I’m a month late.

[@richardjohnson4052]

When I first saw that dam, I KNEW that it would fail! The designers knew nothing about building a dam.

[@Bubbaist]

You should do a segment or episode on Lake Sarez in Tajikistan. It was created by an earthquake that triggered a massive landslide in 1911. If another earthquake were to collapse the dam, the resulting flood would be one for the history books. It would cause massive flooding not only in Tajikistan, but also in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan.

[@KB_13247]

it's absolutely wild to me that the yangtzi basin is responsible for so much of china's food supply. the yangtzi is one of the most polluted rivers in the world. pretty much just the Ganges is worse.

[@goldenhate6649]

Pretty sure they meant the river basin, not the river itself.

[@KB_13247]

@@goldenhate6649 the river being polluted means the basin is pretty much screwed too

[@coweatsman]

China has had flooding along the Yangtze for millennia. 2,000 years ago they built the Grand Canal, a couple of thousand km long, from the Yangtze up to the north where it is dry for flood control as well as transport. Only segments of the old canal exist today.

[@theswiv]

IKR! Eggs & baskets

[@gumpyoldbugger6944]

Actually that is incorrect. While the Ganges is the most polluted river in the world, the Yangtzi is ranked tenth, not really a great thing true, but it is better than the Mississippi Rivers ranking of 6th most polluted river in the world. Hmmm, I sort of recall something about throwing bricks and glass houses..........

[@mrjakethecat]

I think "when" would be more accurate than "if".

[@goldenhate6649]

Honestly, it more depends on CCP stability. If the CCP collapses, the dam's maintenance will likely cease.

[@Patrick-ge2zn]

@@goldenhate6649 The Chinese don't really do maintenance.

[@mrjakethecat]

@@goldenhate6649 I think "when the CCP collapses" is more correct. ;-)

[@Yourmumsrectum]

​@@Patrick-ge2zn is that like USA and poms as well man?

[@Anonymous-zu7dh]

​@@Patrick-ge2zn I'd expect the Chinese to maintain their crown jewel of a hydroelectric dam regardless of what they may or may not do to other things.

[@LitmusPapyrus]

“Unlikely to happen” The B-2 Spirit has entered the chat

[@3dxspx703]

B2 is frantically waving.

[@scotthix2926]

Dambusters calling all Dambusters we have a mission for you.

[@jays233]

Ironic upload time considering what's about to happen with the landslide blocking the fraser in BC about to burst in the next few hours.

[@joeyochoa7484]

Alexa, play when the Levee breaks, Led Zeppelin

[@TheBlindAndTheBeautiful]

You want a way more haunting version of that song that could really fit the imagery go for the A Perfect Circle version from LIve At Red Rocks. Its horrifying thinking about how haunting it is to imagine that song as the background to that kind of situation

[@dannypope1860]

That’s a dam big problem… Chinese engineering isn’t exactly know for quality or competence.

[@roeserr]

I'm surprised that the dams tactical significance to China's enemies was not discussed. This is the best argument for hypersonic bunker buster missiles ever.

[@rdallas81]

No one wil even think about it. Especially when they know that China actually is reserved with its military spending which allowed its industry to flourish. Unlike places in the west....

[@jgrenwod]

Simon Whistler is an outstanding reader.

[@jasontang6725]

The primary purpose of the dam is to generate power - it's by far the worlds largest hydroelectric power plant. Secondary is to facilitate shipping traffic along the river. Flood control is tertiary, albeit still important.

[@goldenhate6649]

A hydroelectric dam cannot effectively conduct flood control. Look at the Missouri River Basin as an example. There are numerous dams, and ANY time we get abnormal rain quantities, the hydroelectric dams make it so, so much worse. Mix that with USACE constantly removing flood plains because of complaining farmers and towns that shouldn't exist, and wallah, more flooding in the last 20 years than in the previous 200. China is making the same mistakes.

[@joelau2383]

It is exactly the opposite. The primary objective is to control or delay flood rate for evacuation. Secondary is to maintain shipping trafiic. Third is to generate power.

[@Shadow__133]

The Itaipu hydroelectric plant in Brazil supplies 15% of the power to the country since 1984, as well as 90% of Paraguai and the majority of power to Argentina and Uruguay. It is impressive, clean and very reliable.

[@capnskurk8679]

Clean by destroying the ecosystem you mean 😂 ​@@Shadow__133

[@Omenowl]

⁠@@goldenhate6649false. The dam has plenty of flood storage and spillway capacity. The dam retards flooding.

[@marcohosfeld9728]

Is the collective KZbinr intelligence predicting something right now?

[@NeneGonzalez-mm9rd]

Water seeks its own level and water is the universal solvent. NOTHING CAN REVERSE THAT..NOTHING CAN STOP THAT.

[@lesjones6745]

I have seen countless videos in the last year or so 'predicting' how the dam is on the verge of failing. Thank you, Simon, for putting the record straight.

[@mikemcgee5950]

As long as they don't attack Taiwan, the damn will be fine.

[@carlosjimenez8129]

this sounds like a case study on the enemy's weaknesses.

[@Toliman.]

It's been a known weakness since the Gulf war and the economic cold war(s) since around 2011 or so. 3 gorges is a massive faultline for China's infrastructure, and they have no defensive or operational strategy to avoid the problems. They would have to write off 10-20 major cities, including roads, governments, food production, etc. In China itself, it may not be newsworthy that it could be talked about, unless they can blame the fault on outsiders. They'd just hide the news and talk about the unusual amount of rain. And, there was an incident in the area. Ignore the delays on roads and highways that are suddenly blocked. or the lack of phone calls to the area. Or the sudden disappearance of leaders. Or that your mobile phone can't call any phones outside of your local town. There's no problems in China. At all. There would be minor concrete faults in a construction this large, but anyone reporting them would be erased from existence faster than every scientist in 2020, who "Went Missing" for no reason. Along with their families. Even if they weren't in Wuhan at the time. That time from January 2020 to March 2020 will forever be scrubbed from all records. Much unlike the Nordstream 2 pipeline which was apparently 'bombed by a boat full of Ukrainan divers while the US fleet was in the area conducting exercises (cough) and somehow were able to plant hundreds of kilograms of explosives in a controlled way, transported on a rental yacht, dropped 80-90m and then detonated on a timer ... While the US was monitoring these divers and all of the significant noise that it would have entailed. Not saying that someone could rent a yacht in the yangtse river, ferry in shipping container sized explosives underwater, drop them off in the most highly monitored area ... because ... if one group could pull that off, someone else can dive 50-100m and drop off thousands of kilos of explosives in the middle of an operating hydro-electric plant, sic. It's all kind of ridiculous anyway. Given the feasibility, they could also achieve a similar result with an oil spill and a combustible EV catching fire.

[@cd0999]

I give it 10 years before the stories of major cracks and poor construction get out

[@lorenzo42p]

will the dam even last that long? we will see.

[@herseem]

Stories about quality inspectors raising concerns and being neutralised are already getting out.

[@lorenzo42p]

@@herseem they're usually paid off

[@angelkilier]

The main dam body finished in 2006. I hope you all know how to count.

[@lorenzo42p]

@@angelkilier and when was it filled to capacity? has it ever been filled to capacity?

[@-Katastrophe]

With manufacturing leaving china at a pretty steady pace, if(when) the dam does fail it will mostly only affect China.

[@coweatsman]

I don't see manufacturing leaving China. Most everything in shops has a label "Made in China".

[@dextermorgan1]

Leaving China? Lol Seriously? You need to turn off the Main Stream Media. Also, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to speak to you about. I have a great deal going on it right now. Don't miss out... 😉

[@AnaFolkenstal]

Their biggest Tofu-Dreg project yet. We'll all see for how long this thing will hold...

[@rdallas81]

Get real. Nothing will happen to it. Ask the great wall of China. Those Chinese are on another level. Ask every country leader in the world.

[@BA-gn3qb]

A fish swims into a cement wall and says: "Damn!"

[@thewhat1214]

Or does it say freedom 🤔

[@RickMason-yj7pv]

DAM!

[@ignitionfrn2223]

4:05 - Chapter 1 - Could the dam really fail ? 7:55 - Chapter 2 - The TGD is showing signs of stress 12:25 - Chapter 3 - Does the dam even work ? 16:25 - Chapter 4 - The dream of chinese leaders 18:40 - Chapter 5 - The problems with the dam 23:25 - Chapter 6 - A disaster & a miracle combined

[@Umski]

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t 😳

[@BoogUwU]

I am looking forward to 'The Great Flush'.

[@12crows1]

Sounds like it would be fun to watch! From a safe distance.

[@jimmyhvy2277]

25:17 , There is a Dinosaur in the Water . Did you spot it ?

[@SirNobleIZH]

Yes i saw it

[@WaywardVet]

Ah, yes. I remember a certain military alarm that never tripped. We just never turned it on. Zero alarms tripped!

[@WaywardVet]

(It was a chemical alarm. We were guarding a nuclear compound at Tuwaitha. I smashed the alarm into a camel spider.)

[@grmpEqweer]

​@@WaywardVet you displayed valor, those things are awful.

[@bon7029]

"How bad would it be if the Three Gorges Dam failed? Taiwan: If China attacks us, you'll find out.

[@paulespinoza974]

I answered this question about 3 years ago: Between 350-400 million people from the initial failure. After the initial break, an additional 300-400 million folk from the disaster occurred. The food source would be the most obvious as described in the video's account.

[@CMDRTurtle]

THE DAM IS BACK ON THE MENU BOYS

[@rolimiranda9291]

Glide bombs, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones carrying guided bombs and missiles , SM 6 .. yeah those are things that comes to my mind while watching this 😂

[@PsyckoSama]

I'll take Hsiung Feng IIE for 400 (million casualties), Alex. It's no mistake Taiwan designed and put into production a supersonic cruise missile capable of mounting bunker buster warheads less than a decade after the Dam came on line. :)

[@mikoto7693]

I was thinking similar. China’s enemies know where to strike.

[@Zenerd775]

0:42 as an American I genuinely need this number in acre-feet

[@justmenotyou3151]

Naw, gallons, so I can compare it to what I got fridge.

[@boonnathan9827]

Haha. Your the only one that needs a conversion.

[@dannydaw59]

Yes, freedom units please!😂 "FFfrEEee-Dooomm"! (William Wallace at the end of Braveheart)

[@dbul2542]

Acre-feet is such a weird unit of measurement.

[@jakep3299]

As an American I assume you've just learnt the rest of the world don't use your imperial measurements. I suggest using Google.

[@megalonoobiacinc4863]

we never got to the part where you were supposed to be talking about the fragile rock it was constructed on. Unless i'm mistaking this for another dam, that's really the three gorges primary challenge.

[@come4t_a_bull]

Poor rock combined with high seismic activity. The dam's designer warned of it... you're absolutely correct.

[@johnsekhukhune1730]

I love Simon's cliffhanger way to go😂

[@ZarineBashire]

Considering the issues with Chinese infrastructure and current building corruption issues, it's not exactly a far off scenario.

[@jsnap1]

14:25 same deal with the Queensland floods of 2011. People were up in arms that the main dam for the Brisbane river opened the spillway. Of might i add was at 120% copacity. I say better some flooding than the dam collapsing

[@MissFoxification]

Best case scenario is mass flooding, like what is occurring in south and west China right now. The water has got to go somewhere and if they stop it, floods. If they release it, floods. That reservoir is so big it changed the climate of the region, which makes the situation even worse as it's warmer (due to thermal mass) and brings more rain, ergo... floods.

[@BloodMoonGo]

Just like that, all of R/Noncredibledefense was summoned...

[@thomaspflasterer7366]

I watched a long form documentary. The things that jumped out to me as a civil structural engineer is the fact that that the walls of what was supposed to a vertical elevator chamber had distorted. The walls had moved so much that it was unusable for its primary task of a ship elevator. Striuctures should not move. This will not end well

[@syddlinden8966]

The fact they had so many problems pointed out before building and still went thru with it feels like an ep of Plainly Difficult or Well There's Your Problem in the making...

[@myrlyn1250]

I remember hearing that Taiwan is "holding the option open" (or some such politico-speak) of targeting the dam in case of an invasion by China. Their version of mutually assured destruction without having to build nukes. And it's well within Tomahawk range from Taiwan...

[@theaudog8315]

Have heard the same, not tomahawk though some super sonic untargetable technology.

[@FerroEquus-262]

The Titanic was once proclaimed to be 'unsinkable'.

[@michaelhart7569]

0:45 Excuse me, but the map indicates potential floods going in opposite directions. Water will generally not flow uphill and downhill at the same time from a point source.

[@clintcowan9424]

Unless it isn't uphill. Is it the top of a hill/mountain/ridge.

[@duanesamuelson2256]

Ignore if the dam itself will fail directly..if one of the upstream dams fail everything downstream will fail also. They can't drop levels fast enough to prevent a cascading failure.

[@FsnGoldandSilver]

Yes, because we all know the high-quality of China’s tofu drag projects of which the three gorgeous dam is the biggest one ever

[@tdyerwestfield]

I'm a hydrologist. My actual title is 'fluvial geomorphologist'. Here's the long and short of it; dams just move flooding further downstream. Once a certain level of water is reached behind a dam, it has to release that water. Dams are good 95% of the time, but after extreme rainfall events, they're just a ramp for floodwater to cause increased damage to settlements.

[@SweBeach2023]

How does this work? Let's assume the dam is filled to 80 percent. A heavy flood makes the operator open the flodgates at 90 percent capacity, still saving some of the water from reaching areas downstream.

[@joelau2383]

If you really are hydrologist, you should have known dam can buy time for evacuation even in extreme rainfall. Besides, the SOP of this dam is to release the water to minimum level before wet season every year. It is the tool to protect people downstream.

[@pootyting3311]

To those disagreeing with the phrasing of the original post, it somewhat concurs with the sentiments of Fan Xiao, geologist, quoted around the 15:00 mark. It all depends on the comparison between the volumes of water involved. Some dams are well suited to control a century flood. Others simply don't have enough reservoir volume capability to make much of a difference, as Fan Xiao is quoted in the video. The huge volume of water involved in a century flood for a large river valley like the Yangtze can quickly exceed the reservoir volume. Flood control for century floods can be done, but it may require dedicated flood control dams, reduced electricity production and a system of dam reservoirs. Multiple reservoirs on the Yangtze and its tributaries may add up to the volume of a century flood, but current dams like Three Gorges apparently do not. I am not an engineer directly involved in hydropower, though I have studied energy issues as part of my career.

[@tomhenry897]

And just sent a jet of water down river

[@Kalashnikov1995]

Wouldn't this also be one of the biggest targets in the event of another cold war?

[@AnotherPointOfView944]

It wouldn't be "cold" then would it.

[@Kalashnikov1995]

@@AnotherPointOfView944 wet war my bad

[@cavalierliberty6838]

​@@AnotherPointOfView944they'd sure as hell be cold after that dam broke, at least downstream.

[@joelau2383]

At least a dam can release water to minimize the risk. Any nuclear powerplant is always a much better and effective target.

[@vexile1239]

That country's "competitors" aren't the only ones targeting it, a certain country further north (that it is "allied" with) is also keeping an eye on that country because that country is eyeing the certain country's only eastern port

[@ChicagoFaucet.etc.]

I live in the Great Lakes area, and I have heard from different sources that back during the heyday of civil engineering projects in the US through the 50s, 60s, and 70s, one of the projects was to raise the water level of Lake Erie. It was determined that if the average level of Lake Erie was raised a minimal amount - only about a foot or so - that would equal so many more cubic feet of fresh water and so much more availability of both fish and shipping lanes. I have no idea how one would do this, but the project was done. One unintended side-effect is that the raised water level saturated up through more land, and erosion and landslides and collapsing Earth caused what once were flat beautiful beaches into treacherous cliffs.

[@captainspaulding5963]

That's not a beach, it's lakeshore.

[@ChicagoFaucet.etc.]

@@captainspaulding5963 Tell me that you haven't been to the Great Lakes without telling me that you haven't been to the Great Lakes.

[@gregorymeyer1798]

This is absolutely the best dam video, with the most amazing dam host ever. 👍😁

[@schumannresonanceswithverte]

In China, they have a cute expression to describe modern construction projects: "Tofu dreg." The construction of many of these chinese mega=projects is considered to be as strong as Tofu. The question is: how many corners were cut in the making of the Three Gorges Dam. The possibliity that the 3 Gorges is yet another tofu dreg project is real, and it should be considered seriously in a dam this size.

[@MrRacing44]

And the CCP never ever lies !😊😊😊😊😊😊

[@usmcjawbreaker97]

“There’s no way this dam could fail” *the jdam in the belly of a b21 raider* : hold this sh!thead

[@henrygonzalez360]

Dams this size are more reinforced than actual bunkers. You'd need a sh!t ton of jdams and moabs to properly take one down.

[@kjj26k]

Yeah, Jdams wouldn't do it. The only bombs that would ever be slung at this thing are the nuclear ICBMs that are already aimed at it.

[@Hurricayne92]

@@kjj26k at which point a broken dam is the least of your issues 🤣

[@bescotdude9121]

@@henrygonzalez360 or several M.O.Ps Massive ordinance penetrator one of the most powerful bunker buster bombs in the world

[@admiralrng6506]

welp, I knew NCD would be all over this video

[@CMVBrielman]

While the information provided would seem to indicate that the dam is not at risk from any natural circumstances, there is an unspoken aspect of Taiwan’s defense strategy that could be concerning. That being that if the mainland were to invade them, they would do their best to blow up the dam.

[@joelau2383]

First, Taiwan can only reach this dam with their subsonic missile similar to Tomahawk that it is easy to intercept them. Second, attacking dam to flood city is obviously war crime. Last, China said they would use nuclear weapon to retaliate whoever attack the dam. In case of Taiwan, it also make the invasion much much easier to erase defense in urban area with nuclear weapon.

[@CMVBrielman]

@@joelau2383 Its a strategy that is to be used under the same circumstances as nuclear weapons.

[@joelau2383]

@@CMVBrielman Then what is the circumstances to use nuclear weapons for them? p.s. nuclear weapon can attack military targets so it may not be war crime, but attacking dam obviously threatening any city downstream and it is clearly war crime. So you cannot say they are the same.

[@CMVBrielman]

@@joelau2383 Mutually Assured Destruction

[@joelau2383]

@@CMVBrielmanUmmmm........ Do you mean Taiwan won't attack the dam if China doesn't use nuclear weapon during invasion?

[@ichichson4674]

How did you grow this marvelous beard?

[@debbieepstein6133]

Before the reservoir filling was initiated in 2003, the region had approximately two earthquakes per year with magnitudes between 3.0 and 4.9 In 2013, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred near the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric dam built in 2003 to block the Yangtze River. The earthquake caused some damage to structures near its epicenter, but no apparent damage to the dam. Seems that creating this ENORMOUS reservoir wasn't a good idea.

[@eversor10]

No crime quite like a war crime

[@russellspear4911]

Only if you lose.

[@Seagaltalk]

"According to Chinese officials" is always a bad sign

[@elizabethdavis1696]

What is really needed is a video on survival strategies in case this actually happens!!!!

[@complexsin5469]

Don't build in front of a dam

[@serduncan6933]

There are two Options: 1. You get enough time to get out of the way 2. You Dont... In that Case You better start praying to whatever god is listening.

[@DennisNeijmeijer]

Enough money in a bug-out bag to flee to another place. That's all you can do before it happens, and is also a realistic countermeasure for other disasters...

[@pootyting3311]

Globally, the economic turmoil may require some survival strategies. Well, at least in some first world nations that have become reliant on cheap goods from the factories along the Yangtze. 🤪

[@Cannon500]

Back in 2020, people were all saying that the dam is going to collapse, it didn't. Then people say it will collapse in 2021, then 2022, then 2023, and now 2024 and the dam is still there. In 2025, there will be another video that will say this dam will collapse.

[@sinjin8576]

"Could the dam fail?" Never EVER underestimate the damage foolish people can cause.

[@GohanKanor]

Before any real modifications are made, the CCP will make it unlawful to discuss the dam. Merely an estimate.

[@BATOGames]

"why is the probability of the dam collapsing being brought up at all"? Because it would be a dam shame to be a dam failure dam it

[@calebbean1384]

Well God dam