
China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated - bhouston
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Natural-disasters/China-on-highest-flood-alert-as-38m-people-evacuated
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byoung2
It is impressive that they were able to evacuate 38m people.

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trhway
it is hard to imagine where do you evacuate so many people to - temp housing?
relatives?

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lvturner
China is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big
it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's,
but that's just peanuts to China.

Butchering of Douglas Adams' work aside, it's true, having taken a train a few
times across bits of mainland China - it just. does. not. stop. and you can
witness constant construction too.

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thaumasiotes
> China is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big
> it is.

China is almost exactly the same size as the United States.

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lvturner
I was not just referring to China's acreage. China is also very big vertically
- and this vertical building is not just limited to a handful of cities.

Being originally from Scotland, almost every large country or city is mind-
blowingly big as far as I'm concerned :)

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Ekaros
It is quite eye opening when you hear of name of some "smaller" Chinese city
you have never heard of and then go look the population only to find it to be
in millions.

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cvhashim
A friend of mine in college was an international student from China. He was
from a city I had never heard of and it boasted a population of 7 million
people.

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kwistzhaderach
Xi is losing the Mandate of Heaven

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bamboozled
China can't stop burning coal either, unfortunately they'll just get more of
this.

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perfunctory
All of us will get more of this and other stuff.

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bamboozled
Yes this is true, just some nations contributing a lot more than others.

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perfunctory
Yes, but it's complicated -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipVxxxqwBQw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipVxxxqwBQw)

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cbmuser
And another proof why nuclear power is the safest form of power generation.

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blackrock
If I recall, there were always stories of southern China getting flooded every
few decades. Tens of millions would get wiped out and killed by the floods.
So, this is a very tragic and cyclic event.

Thus, they were determined to build the great Three Gorges Dam, to control the
flooding. And even at the cost, where it would at least hold back the floods
for a few decades, then this might be worth it, in order to prevent regular
destabilization.

The society could at least grow and prosper for a while. This could buy the
society enough time to build other fortifications, or do something to mitigate
a future disaster.

These people here live in a flood plain. The water is washing down from the
mountains, and the government didn’t build enough flood run off to handle the
torrential downpour.

In the future, they should probably build their newer buildings on top of a 10
foot high concrete base. Or build more flood run off channels.

It’s easy to be a naysayer and cast your doubt about something. It’s much
harder to actually do the research, and try to engineer something to hold back
the forces of Mother Nature, for the greater benefit of their society.

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makomk
Yeah, as I understand it Banqiao Dam was/is quite similar - it was also
necessary in order to prevent much more regular and disruptive downstream
flooding, and its collapse was a direct consequence of holding back too much
water out of fear of downstream flooding (as well as some unfortunate design
flaws). It also served as a water supply. That doesn't stop nuclear proponents
regularly pointing to its failure as evidence that nuclear is safer than
hydroelectric.

I suspect there might be a bias towards high-profile dam failures in China
involving hydroelectric dams because the larger dams obviously get more
attention and were also more economically viable to incorporate hydroelectric
power into.

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sam_goody
"Looks like we should gotten a different copy of 2020... this one has a
virus!"

A wacky year that has thrown a lot at us (and election fun has barely begun)!

