What Would Happen if the Three Gorges Dam Failed?

Witness the unimaginable devastation as the 7,661-foot Three Gorges Dam fails, unleashing billions of cubic meters of water across China. Explore the catastrophic aftermath and its far-reaching global impacts.

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[Idiodyssey]

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

[humphrey]

Finally the Yangtze River Dolphin will have its revenge

[camerongooch]

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

[erasmus_locke]

-China invades Taiwan-

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

[stephenhoward]

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.

[OmegaInfinityAlpha]

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

[Jason-fmmy]

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.

[namehere]

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).

[acmelka]

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

[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.

[johnwhorfin]

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

[ZMB-onub]

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

[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

[justandy]

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

[Umski]

Pre-emptive Plainly Difficult future video I expect 😮

[Kahless]

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

[KB_]

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.

[retireeelectronics]

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?

[atillathehungry]

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

[jasontang]

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.