WI the Three Gorges Dam breaks

At the very least, this would bring China to it's knees...

What are the odds some terrorist would target it?

High, I think. If some terrorist with a nuke had a grudge against China, this is where they'd target. It's also the reason the Aswan Dam would almost certainly have been nuked had 1973 gone pear-shaped for Israel.
 
High, I think. If some terrorist with a nuke had a grudge against China, this is where they'd target. It's also the reason the Aswan Dam would almost certainly have been nuked had 1973 gone pear-shaped for Israel.

Would a nuke really be necessary? Or could it be done with concentrated, well-placed C4?
 
Would a nuke really be necessary? Or could it be done with concentrated, well-placed C4?

It probably could be done with enough C4, but it's a pretty huge hunk of concrete. You'd probably have to place the charges very carefully and set them off at the exact same time. All that would be rather hard to coordinate and there would be a very high chance of being discovered or have some of the charges knocked out of place in the process. A nuke is much, much simpler to deal with.

In summary, it's possible, but much more difficult. This is ignoring the difficulty of getting a nuke in the first place, of course.
 
Oddball, in your proffesional opinion what would it take to cause a total failure of the Three Gorges Dam?
 
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Oddball

Monthly Donor
Oddball, in your proffesional opinion what would it take to cause a total failure of the Three Gorges Dam?

Instant critical failure? Nothing.

Long term or a combination of several unlikley events happening at the same time? A few.

Im ruling out constructional errors. The chinese are not stupid.
 
So, if we assume a 8.0-8.5 earthquake hit, what type of damage are we talking about if the Dam broke? How many casualities? Could it be a collossal failure that results in the fall of the Chinese government?
 
So, if we assume a 8.0-8.5 earthquake hit, what type of damage are we talking about if the Dam broke? How many casualities? Could it be a collossal failure that results in the fall of the Chinese government?

Maybe. I think that one of the main reasons the Chinese has been successful in curbing freedoms of its people is their high economic growth. If the dam breaks and destroys much of Nanjing and Shanghai, the economic effects would be devastating to say the least.

The cost of reconstruction and recovery would likely be in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions, and would take years. It'll likely pop the housing bubble currently growing in China and increase labor unrest. The people would likely lose a lot of trust in the central government, and there certainly will be calls for reforms and openness.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Instant critical failure? Nothing.

Long term or a combination of several unlikley events happening at the same time? A few.

Im ruling out constructional errors. The chinese are not stupid.

Hm. What exactly is this thing made of, if you don't mind me asking?
 
The Three Gorges dam itself may have been built with a fair margin of safety, and it seems to have survived the usual 'isostatic' temblors associated with any new lake...

If they've been canny, they will have included inspection and grouting galleries, allowing them to fill cracks before those cascade. Downside, IMHO, is that a 'historic' quake may exceed their damage control provisions...

Worst case scenario, IMHO, is *not* the dams failing due to a big quake's damage, but the uncontrolled release of water from a big avalanche's lake overwhelming spill-ways and tumbling damaged retaining walls...


Bingo. If any terrorist wanted to target that damn, but had no nuke, he could just go upstream to one of the several mountains that overlooks the Yangtze river. It would take quite a few, but a sufficient number of large enough C4 charges could get a very large rock-slide into the river below. Such events into narrow water ways cause ENORMOUS waves--such effect was seen in a 1,740 foot wave in Lituya Bay, Alaska--and could cause similar, albiet not as enormous, effect in the relatively narrow Yangtze River. Such a wave would have large force with it, enough to damage the damn itself.

Then again, would any of the destructions of any upstream dam release enough water to damage the downstream dams? If so, then a terrorist could just target one(or two or three or four) of the dams further upstream.
 

Oddball

Monthly Donor
Steel and concrete according to Wikipedia.

Yes :)

Bingo. If any terrorist wanted to target that damn, ....

In theory you are correct.

But the scale of things in this matter makes setting off an upstream landslide very hard. You would have to organise a pretty large "construction site" to do this. Even in a open democracy like Norway it would be an impossible feat to pull it off unnoticed. In China... :eek:

Look,

The Three Gorges is an concrete gravitational dam, a very safe dam type. It is by nature designed to be overflowed, and it is much less prone to earth quakes than other types (except rock fill dams).

Yes it has its weaknesess, but so have all constructions. Im am not inclined to talk abouth them tough. Just let us say that Im farly confident in the chinese in this matter.

IMHO the "only" real threath to the Three Georges is a war against a foe that can project high energy specialised power to the site. Terrorist attacks is not an issue, except the unlikely nuclear device.

The environmental effects of The three Georges is another matter ofcourse. Those who are conserned about to this, should not try to make an issue of the possibility of an dam break at the Three Georges.
 
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