My prediction is that this is going to turn into one of the biggest human tragedies of the 21st c. Is it inevitable that this dam fails?
Well I hope it doesn't fail, but China doesn't have the best track record...
I thought that too. But when the government displaces 1.3 million, the people probably don't have much of a choice. Like that woman said "What the government says. You do."
Ugh. IMO it will probably fail. The huge change in mass due to the lake has to deform the earth below, and I recall a fault line runs nearby. It's an incredible feat of engineering, but I think it's courting disaster.The number of "geological hazards" had risen 70 percent since water levels in the reservoir reached a maximum of 175 meters (574 ft), he said, without elaborating, although he was believed to be referring to landslides. Liu could not be reached for comment.
I remember reading years ago that the original consulting firm (Canadian, I believe) implored the government to not build the dam higher than about 160m. In typical totalitarian state fashion, they decided they could defy the rules of gravity and it now stands at a maximum of ~180m, or an extra ~28-29psi (by my back of the napkin calculation--a lot of weigh when integrated over those hundreds of square miles). Hopefully, the initial study had a safety factor of about 10, knowing full well that the government would not listen to whatever they had to say.