Banqiao Dam Disaster!

[applesauce]

holy shit how have I never heard of this before.

so the dam was built in 1952 as part of a huge network of dams across the valley to prevent floods, create power, you know.

so then in 1975 a fucking huge typhoon hit a cold front and dropped more than TWO YEARS average rainfall on the valley, which was already experiencing seasonal flooding and the resivoirs were high. Communications between the dams and the military were cut by the storm and it took them two days to get the signal that a dam upsteam was about to fail and they needed to open their floodgates but the gates were stuck. they made the order to open the dam via airstrike but the order didn't reach the military in time and none of the dams downstream got it either and it collapsed, sending a wall of water 6 miles wide and 23 feet tall that obliterated an entire basin 35 miles long and 10 miles wide. in total 62 dams were either blown up to release pressure via airstrike or collapsed under flood weight. 26,000 were killed by the water directly, and 11,000,000 homes were destroyed. another 180,000 died of disease when cut off from clean water, food, electricity, and medical supplies


HOLY SHIT

[snoorkel]

wow. where was this exactly??? (too laz to lookup)

[applesauce]

wow. where was this exactly??? (too laz to lookup)

central china