The apocalyptic flood affected more than 6.8 million people in China’s Hunan province and damaged 628,000 hectares of agricultural land.
A total of 6.86 million people have been affected by rain-induced floods in central China’s Hunan province this year, local officials said Friday.
Downpours in the province have killed 24 people, according to the Flood Control and Drought Management Authority.
Approximately 21,300 houses collapsed or were seriously damaged, and about 628,000 hectares of agricultural land were damaged by heavy rains.
According to official statistics, direct economic losses amounted to 14.63 billion yuan (about $ 2.14 billion).
As of Wednesday, Hunan Province had 24 heavy rainfalls this year, with a total of 1,299.4mm.
The flood around the Yangtze continues
In the second half of August, the world’s attention was focused on the Chinese Three Gorges hydroelectric power station, which had to withstand the next and maximum wave of flood in its entire history. The speed of water approach there reached 80,000 cubic meters per second – despite the fact that the spillway could pass a maximum of 50,000 cubic meters per second.
Fortunately, the high flow rate of the Yangtze did not last long and the reservoir level rose only to 168 meters, while the extreme state for the dam is 175 meters. However, although the flood has subsided a bit, the dam continues to collapse, as evidenced by satellite images from September 2:
The water from above is still flowing and will continue to flow, but half of the spillways were closed, although the reservoir has not yet been lowered to the required level.
This suggests that the spillways are severely destroyed from long continuous operation:
The power of 90,000 PSI of water https://t.co/YNuZuU25GJ— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) September 1, 2020
In addition, there is also such a thing as cavitation – the formation of bubbles in water, which collapse with the release of energy. The release is very large – there is even a technology for cavitation cleaning of hydraulic structures from build-ups, that is, with such bubbles, concrete can be peeled off to reinforcement in a few seconds.
#chinafloods 已经35天了,洪水还未褪去. August 28th Yunnan province #China pic.twitter.com/u9rOoPRHSo— U.S.R. Communique (@UndergroundSilk) August 30, 2020
September 1st compilation pic.twitter.com/KhiCwyiypM— U.S.R. Communique (@UndergroundSilk) September 2, 2020
“我们安徽人虽然穷,但我们不傻”pic.twitter.com/ujiX9CYhk0— 新闻/真话 (@TuCaoFakeNews) September 1, 2020
The only thing that now stands between the Chinese and the elements is ‘strong and reliable Chinese concrete’.
Poor quality construction is commonplace in #China, lack of standards and absolute corruption are the codes of conduct when the #CCP Mafia government is in power. pic.twitter.com/YPWWP8ZrAL— U.S.R. Communique (@UndergroundSilk) August 29, 2020
Due to lack of proper building codes and corruption withing the regulatory bureau, many buildings are simply washing away. Here we can plainly see there is no real foundation, similar to the Chinese Communist Party's legal claim to the South China Sea, baseless.#China pic.twitter.com/uRuXPppKBG— U.S.R. Communique (@UndergroundSilk) August 25, 2020 A building in Huizhou, #Guangdong province, in #China, was knocked down. In the process of building up, knocking down, building up again, more #GDP, and more kickbacks on contractual work are produced. So don't say the efforts are useless and wasted! pic.twitter.com/UHYyRWKdey— Jennifer Zeng 曾錚 (@jenniferatntd) August 25, 2020