China Floodwatch 2020-21 - Wuhan, Hubei/Henan Province is sinking and I dunno how to swim.

[benutz]

I may as well ask questions while I'm here since well, this is a much bigger deal than COVID-19 and Nigger Lives Don't Matter. I know they're important, but when we're potentially facing the deadliest disaster in history (which we can blame on the CCP Party no less), this will have global ramifications.

First, where is the proof that Wuhan/cities on the Yangtze River manufacture like 90% of generic drugs on our market and a lot of manufacturing? I have been hearing that this will devastate pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries worldwide if the one in China gets trashed. I'd personally believe it, but I need proof that isn't on the world's worst website.

Second, how do we know that the area around the Yangtze River consist of 3% of the world's GDP? Do they just look at China's GDP and just include provinces that might be affected by the flooding. I wouldn't deny it, but again, need proof.

Third, I've been hearing a lot about how the Three Gorges Dam will cause a nuclear holocaust in China. I thought countries were shying away from using nuclear and this dam does use hydroelectricity.

Also, I'd be curious how exactly upstream would be affected by a collapse of the Three Gorges Dam. I have no doubt it would devastate part of it, but I'm just curious how the kickback to cities west of the TGD would occur.
I just want to say that I really appreciate you and @melty for keeping track of this. I have been saving screenshots on my phone just in case neither of you were, but this is incredibly helpful. If you need my help, I can try taking over for a few hours.

I'm just going to pick up on this part:


Third, I've been hearing a lot about how the Three Gorges Dam will cause a nuclear holocaust in China. I thought countries were shying away from using nuclear and this dam does use hydroelectricity.


As I understand it, it's not a 'nuclear holocaust' per se, it is more 'nuclear holocaust' levels of dead if shit kicks off.

Also, another interpretation might be: I believe there are 2 or 3 Nuclear power generating/processing plants downstream of there. So they get wrecked if shit kicks off. Don't quote me. I don't know. I haven't checked it to be a fact.

Man has/always will look to harnass the power of nature to give 'free energy' and what better than Hydro - the power of water?

But nuclear is a close second and I'm sure they are doing that shit too and cutting as many corners, like building stations where there is serious waterflow (because nuclear needs water to cool shit - that's how it heats up shit). It's an abusive symbiotic relationship.

There won't be atomic bombs going off. Worst case scenario is a nuclear facility gets totally submerged and dirty water rushes down for hundreds of miles contaminating everything. The possibilities are endless. It really could get ugly.

But no one thinks the rain will come.
Or if it does, it won't come in their life time. Or their children's.

Some just don't care.

I don't know what nuke facilities there are around there. It may actually be there are one or two as claimed. Even just one is bad news.

The soil will be 'salted' for a long long time to come. And it will be their own people doing it to each other.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have a look at what actual facilities there are around there (nuke wise). But in an area that big, in a population density that condensed, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't at least one, drinking up that sweet flow of water to keep things cool/heat things up, in a controlled fashion, until...


It probably would be better for the world if a couple of nukes did go off there and keep it local, because if you get massive leakage from wrecked nuke facilities, that can't be good for the planet as a whole. That shit will leak out in to drinking water, food for animals, etc. I don't know.


Don't wish too much badness on the chinks. Most of them don't deserve it.

And really, don't heap too much hate on to the whole shitshow, where it comes back to haunt you later.


We share this globe together.

Not enough dull cunts realise that yet.

We all should be taking care of each other.

I say that not as a hippy, but as a serious pragmatist.

Not as romantic as flowers in your hair, I know.

But better than having tumours in your bones in 10 years time.

 

[Jimmy Durante's Ballsack]

Maybe tomorrow I'll have a look at what actual facilities there are around there (nuke wise). But in an area that big, in a population density that condensed, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't at least one, drinking up that sweet flow of water to keep things cool/heat things up, in a controlled fashion, until...

Earlier in the thread someone said there were (I think) seven nuclear plants with eleven reactors between them. But there was no sourcing.

 

[I can't imagine]

Earlier in the thread someone said there were (I think) seven nuclear plants with eleven reactors between them. But there was no sourcing.

It's 3 plants, though the 11 reactors number is correct. There's Sanmen with 2, Fangjiashan also with 2, and Qinshan with 7. Tianwan (6 reactors) and Ningde (4 reactors) are within a few hundred miles of the river; I don't think they would be affected, but I'll mention them for completeness sake.

I'll link the Wikipedia Article for reference, in case you wanna take a gander. Lots of plants in construction and planning stages, but thankfully not active yet.

 

[robobobo]

Problem is, even if they 100% shut down every reactor before an incoming wave hits them, if any of the containment gets cracked that flood is now carrying a shitload of radioactive water with it. All the way down a major river. To the ocean. Fission reactors use a closed water loop for heat transfer, because you don't want the water around the fuel to get outside and contaminate the shit out of everything. But big problems arise fast if the reactor explodes (Chernobyl) or leaks (Fukushima), because all that glowing water has to go somewhere, and if these reactors are along a river, everything downstream of them is going to be getting rads. And it's going to stick around, in the water, in the soil, in all the plants and animals that absorb the water...

 

[potato in mah painus]

So like flood waters here, are we talking tsunami-type completely unnavigable or more like "Mississippi becomes 3 miles wide" and you could send aircraft carriers all the way up the river? Because some arks might be in order.

If the dam breaks, its a tsunami of unimaginable size and force. Google the horrors of Japan's recent 9.1 quake and that will give you a pretty good idea of what is going to happen. The difference though and its a major one: None of the structures in the line of fire are hardened against flood or blast damage.

 

[Cold Root Beer]

older reactors modeled after Russian design

Hopefully they're RBMK reactors, since those can't explode.... I hope I don't need to go to the infirmary

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

If the dam breaks, its a tsunami of unimaginable size and force. Google the horrors of Japan's recent 9.1 quake and that will give you a pretty good idea of what is going to happen. The difference though and its a major one: None of the structures in the line of fire are hardened against flood or blast damage.

Yeah obviously in a "dam is damned" scenario everything is fucked, even the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam fucked shit up when it went.

I was thinking more of a "the dam survives but everything floods because they had to let so much water though" scenario.

 

[spiritofamermaid]

I'm just going to pick up on this part:


Third, I've been hearing a lot about how the Three Gorges Dam will cause a nuclear holocaust in China. I thought countries were shying away from using nuclear and this dam does use hydroelectricity.


As I understand it, it's not a 'nuclear holocaust' per se, it is more 'nuclear holocaust' levels of dead if shit kicks off.

Also, another interpretation might be: I believe there are 2 or 3 Nuclear power generating/processing plants downstream of there. So they get wrecked if shit kicks off. Don't quote me. I don't know. I haven't checked it to be a fact.

Man has/always will look to harnass the power of nature to give 'free energy' and what better than Hydro - the power of water?

But nuclear is a close second and I'm sure they are doing that shit too and cutting as many corners, like building stations where there is serious waterflow (because nuclear needs water to cool shit - that's how it heats up shit). It's an abusive symbiotic relationship.

There won't be atomic bombs going off. Worst case scenario is a nuclear facility gets totally submerged and dirty water rushes down for hundreds of miles contaminating everything. The possibilities are endless. It really could get ugly.

But no one thinks the rain will come.
Or if it does, it won't come in their life time. Or their children's.

Some just don't care.

I don't know what nuke facilities there are around there. It may actually be there are one or two as claimed. Even just one is bad news.

The soil will be 'salted' for a long long time to come. And it will be their own people doing it to each other.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have a look at what actual facilities there are around there (nuke wise). But in an area that big, in a population density that condensed, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't at least one, drinking up that sweet flow of water to keep things cool/heat things up, in a controlled fashion, until...


It probably would be better for the world if a couple of nukes did go off there and keep it local, because if you get massive leakage from wrecked nuke facilities, that can't be good for the planet as a whole. That shit will leak out in to drinking water, food for animals, etc. I don't know.


Don't wish too much badness on the chinks. Most of them don't deserve it.

And really, don't heap too much hate on to the whole shitshow, where it comes back to haunt you later.


We share this globe together.

Not enough dull cunts realise that yet.

We all should be taking care of each other.

I say that not as a hippy, but as a serious pragmatist.

Not as romantic as flowers in your hair, I know.

But better than having tumours in your bones in 10 years time.

Tbh with as much pollution the Chinese have put into the rivers idk if they'd even be able to tell if the water was irradiated.

 

[Blasterisk]

Tbh with as much pollution the Chinese have put into the rivers idk if they'd even be able to tell if the water was irradiated.

It'd be easy enough to stick the business end of a Geiger counter at a levee or sinkhole or what have you. Any arsenic, cyanide, Yellow 40 or pineapple pizza that happened to float by wouldn't affect that.

 

[I can't imagine]

Yeah obviously in a "dam is damned" scenario everything is fucked, even the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam fucked shit up when it went.

I was thinking more of a "the dam survives but everything floods because they had to let so much water though" scenario.

There's a little of every kind of flooding going on right now. Some have been the blunt force trauma flooding of a dam being destroyed to alleviate pressure on the main waterway, some have been towns and villages just slowly getting swallowed up by the water. At least one place (Poyang Lake) had a dike burst, and several other places had dikes breached. It's a big river with a lot of tributaries, so different areas are getting different kinds of impacts.

 

[Jimmy Durante's Ballsack]

Over 40,000 meters cubed per second are flowing out of the dam but there is still significantly more flowing in than out. The rate of water level increase in the reservoir is holding, which is to say that we are still looking at +2 meters per day. The predicted decrease due to one day of less rain is also holding. The decreasing curve seems to be swinging back up somewhat. This reprieve may be ending very soon.

There's a little of every kind of flooding going on right now. Some have been the blunt force trauma flooding of a dam being destroyed to alleviate pressure on the main waterway, some have been towns and villages just slowly getting swallowed up by the water. At least one place (Poyang Lake) had a dike burst, and several other places had dikes breached. It's a big river with a lot of tributaries, so different areas are getting different kinds of impacts.

This is awful.

 

[Coleslaw]

Great post. This is what we are sorely in need of in this thread at the moment: accounts from within China. If any of you have the ability to get information from people within China and if they can relay that information to us safely, please get that information! Even "mundane" things like what people are saying over lunch are of great interest to myself and (I am sure) many others.

Nobody here in the Yangtze Delta is that worried although the floodwaters are at very high levels.

 

[Xarpho]

I'm just going to pick up on this part:


Third, I've been hearing a lot about how the Three Gorges Dam will cause a nuclear holocaust in China. I thought countries were shying away from using nuclear and this dam does use hydroelectricity.


As I understand it, it's not a 'nuclear holocaust' per se, it is more 'nuclear holocaust' levels of dead if shit kicks off.

Also, another interpretation might be: I believe there are 2 or 3 Nuclear power generating/processing plants downstream of there. So they get wrecked if shit kicks off. Don't quote me. I don't know. I haven't checked it to be a fact.

Man has/always will look to harnass the power of nature to give 'free energy' and what better than Hydro - the power of water?

But nuclear is a close second and I'm sure they are doing that shit too and cutting as many corners, like building stations where there is serious waterflow (because nuclear needs water to cool shit - that's how it heats up shit). It's an abusive symbiotic relationship.

There won't be atomic bombs going off. Worst case scenario is a nuclear facility gets totally submerged and dirty water rushes down for hundreds of miles contaminating everything. The possibilities are endless. It really could get ugly.

I was thinking about this recently. Even if there weren't nuclear power plants (or others) downstream that could fucked by 3GD going down, it produces about 87 TWh annually, which is a little less than 2% of the main Chinese power demand, but a potential for cascading failure could plunge Chinese cities into darkness, and whatever will follow that.

 

[heathercho]

If anyone is interested, Xinhua have good photos atleast.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/27/c_139244272_2.htm

 

[Jimmy Durante's Ballsack]

If anyone is interested, Xinhua have good photos atleast.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/27/c_139244272_2.htm

I am still noticing that we aren't being shown clear images of the back side of the dam.


edit: looks like inflow is dropping, which is good. Hopefully not just temporary.

 

[Cycleye]

Watching the live streams. My heart lept at just before 23:00 china time as the lights on the dam started flickering and then went out. Hard to say for sure , without light on the outflows, but looks like they are flowing more water.

 

[Jimmy Durante's Ballsack]

Watching the live streams. My heart lept at just before 23:00 china time as the lights on the dam started flickering and then went out. Hard to say for sure , without light on the outflows, but looks like they are flowing more water.

Yeah they're pushing out over 40,000m³/s and with inflow dropping below 45,000m³/s they may be able to catch up a bit. Reservoir levels are still rising but more slowly than previous days.

 

[spiritofamermaid]

It'd be easy enough to stick the business end of a Geiger counter at a levee or sinkhole or what have you. Any arsenic, cyanide, Yellow 40 or pineapple pizza that happened to float by wouldn't affect that.

shhhhh why you gotta ruin my joke dude so darude

(But thank you for the info, it was nice. Also screw you pineapple pizza is awesome)

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

It'd be easy enough to stick the business end of a Geiger counter at a levee or sinkhole or what have you. Any arsenic, cyanide, Yellow 40 or pineapple pizza that happened to float by wouldn't affect that.

It would, if the whole damn river is glowing.

Is there such thing as radioactive arsenic?

 

[Return of the Freaker]

It would, if the whole damn river is glowing.

Is there such thing as radioactive arsenic?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_arsenic

Arsenic only has one stable isotope (As-75). Of the 32 others, As-73 is the longest lived at about an 80 day half-life. You could use regular, stable Arsenic to make a salted nuke (transmutes by detonation to As-76, 1 day half-life)