What Would Happen if the Three Gorges Dam Failed? 

Indeed

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

Quite

@@user-kj7ld8xh2p 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.

The return of the Yangtze river dolphin Nature is healing

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.

@@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.

DO IT

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

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

The Funny, you might say

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

Strategic

More of an Operational / Strategic target.

​@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.

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

Nuke em

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Doom answer: you don’t want to know.😂

they are planing to build a larger dam in the tibet

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

@@Daginni1 a party for what 🧐🧐

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

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

This is an issue with all governments

@@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.

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

Were any humans around to hear it?

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

I believe volcano explosions like Mt Toba were louder

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

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

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

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.

@@TheUncannyObserver China is AWFUL

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

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

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

The book was surprisingly predictive of the future.

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

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

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.

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.

​@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.

​@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.

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.

"The China Show"

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.

@@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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Look up "Hurricane Rita Evacuation Houston."

Yes, the simple answer is yes.

@@paperburnno it isn’t 😂

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

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.

@@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

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

@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.

@@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

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

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.

Same here

💯

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

​@@poptart2ndpathetic cope

@@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.

@@poptart2nd lol.

lol

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.

Get your bingo cards ready. 😁👍👍💯

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.

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.

​@@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.

Not at all

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.

What would the Chinese do with east Siberia?

@@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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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

His concerns were "inconvenient "...😂

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

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

@@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".

100% normal in China. No, for real, this actually isn't anything worth writing home about, which is completely insane. Check out Serpentza or laowhy87, both of them do nothing but post videos about this sort of thing.

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.

@@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.

They would probably just need to disable control systems

1 6 man team with a backpack nuke.

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.

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.

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

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

welp, I knew NCD would be all over this video

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

Which never happened lol

I hate it when that happens.

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

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

I caught that too...

Weird. British accents only sound smart.

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

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

It'd be upriver when a landslide occurs?

Came here looking for comrades lmao

Oh hell yeah!

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

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

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

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.

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

Soon it will be illegal to talk, period.

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

@@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.

@@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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

​@@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.

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

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

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.

IKR! Eggs & baskets

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..........

Or does it say freedom 🤔

DAM!

I was just guna comment that ,am to slow ay

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.

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

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

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

@@herseem they're usually paid off

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

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

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

Haha. Your the only one that needs a conversion.

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

Acre-feet is such a weird unit of measurement.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

@@AnotherPointOfView944 wet war my bad

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

And just sent a jet of water down river

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

A dinosaur 😂😂 yes

23:48 The 23:54 time the brachiosaurus statue has already passed.

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

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... 😉

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.

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

@@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.

@@joelau2383 Mutually Assured Destruction

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

Only if they are stupid enough to invade Taiwan.

Only if you lose.

suicidal idea.

Stupid logic. You are assuming there must something wrong, and whatever they say, it must be 10 times worse. What if there is actually nothing wrong? Of course that thought never crossed your mind before you open up your mouth. That's called prejudice. It's like how can you prove yourself not insane when whether you deny or admit it, you are crazy.

Must be a Democrat to believe what a communist says

Stop with all these jokes, dam you.

Well God dam

Guys will read this and just be like "hell yeah"

The launch buttons for those missiles are also labelled "Nuke me". Imagine being this brain dead that the first thing that comes to mind is destroying a dam that will cause millions of deaths. Do you jump to the same thought when you see photos of London, Paris, NYC? I'm sure those are targeted by every nuclear power in the world. Negative IQ take.

Shhhhhh...

Indeed, this is the big strategic problem: the dam is within firing range of Taiwanese missiles.

china loves to poke at war, but they are secretly shitting their pants.

Yes i saw it

you convince the chinese goverment to spend money on that. its more money than they want to spend on this

Why would they want to divert water thousand km to sea??? Instead, they divert excessive water in wet season to reservoir near desert area for De-desertification.

it sound easy but when you see how big the river is and how much water you're going to need to divert you see it's an impossible venture. Simon said the coast is about 1600km away (that's 1000miles) and would would be 1 pipe, and you're going to need dozens of pipes and they will need to be big (probably dozens of meters or hundreds of feet in diameter). those pipes need to somehow be laid down through mountains, valleys, canyons, marshland, forest etc. if it was like sim city where you point the mouse click and the thing gets build it would be possible. but in the real world the challenges, the costs and the required expertise are impossible.

This is the issue, if it was a flood control dam, they would let the dam pretty much dry up for most of the year and only fill for flood control. Flood control was just a palatable way to sell it to the public.

@@goldenhate6649 China does release the water to minimum level every year before wet season. And the public know it works because they are told how bad the flood was by their grandparents who were told by their grandgrandparents...........

Made by holding back water

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

nukes are kind of a moot point though. Blowing up a dam is a war crime and doing it to a dam this size isnt going to be viewed by the PRC as any better then launching a nuke so using conventional missiles isnt much of a benefit. The sheer amount of explosives you'll need also means using a near-nuclear explosion anyways, you have to remember that this thing is 40-115m/130-380ft of concrete and rebar. The sheer weight keeps it in place so it's not like the Hoover dam, making it much harder to break. You'll basically need a bunker buster or earthquake bomb to take it out, which are both difficult to deliver since they need to be delivered by aircraft and not missile. Since you need either a massive explosive missile or a fleet of aircraft dodging air defenses to drop bunker buster bombs, and since the PRC is going to treat it the same as a nuclear attack and it's a war crime regardless, you may as well just go nuclear. Especially since any war between the PRC and ROC is going to be a battle to the death for Taiwan you may as well go all in.

@@arthas640 Thats how MAD works. If one side is attacked, they can decide to trigger mutual destruction.

@@rocksmo3384 exactly. People get a little too technical sometimes with nukes and think that if you can do nuclear levels of destruction without a nuclear reaction that the other country's hands are tied and they cant treat it like a devastating attack, when in reality a country isnt likely to see the nuances between a million deaths from a blown up dam and a million deaths from a blown up, mildly irradiated dam and are more likely to treat the two like one and the same. Legal loopholes matter in court rooms but with war people dont really make technical distinctions like that very often.

Don't build in front of a dam

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.

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...

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. 🤪