Three Gorges Dam on alert as heavy rain and floods kill 6 in China.
Last year China Observer produced a video claiming the Three Gorges Dam had failed - but the dam is clearly still there, at least for now.
Why do concerns about the collapse of the Three Gorges Dam emerge every time a severe rainfall event strikes the headwaters of the dam? The answer is there is evidence the Dam is badly sited and badly constructed, like a lot of other questionable construction projects in China.
In a rare revelation, Beijing has admitted that its 2.4-kilometer Three Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River in Hubei province "Deformed slightly" after record flooding.
The deformation occurred last Saturday when the flood from western provinces including Sichuan and Chongqing along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River peaked at a record-setting 61,000 cubic meters per second, according to China Three Gorges Corporation, a state-owned enterprise that manages the dam and the sprawling power plant underneath it.
To manage downstream flooding, the Three Gorges Dam has been used to store water, but in the last two days the gates have been opened to create new storage capacity ahead of the next round of rainfall.
People have been hi-lighting the problems with the dam and warning of the risk of collapse for decades, yet the dam is still there.
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