China’s Hidden Dam Crisis 4,000 Dams Lost & Floods Unleashed!

Now, China has more dams than any other country in the world. In fact, half of the world's reservoirs are in China. And six of the 10 tallest dams are in China, too. And before the Communist Party came to power in 1949, China had only about 20 reservoirs. They were mostly built by the Japanese during their occupation. And then by 1950, there were just 22 dams in China. That's a very small slice out of the 5,268 dams worldwide. So, China only had 22 out of them. By 1973, just in two decades, China had constructed 170,000 dams, but they're mostly small ones. And a second wave began after the three gorgeous dam were approved. Um, then China started to focus on mega dams and giant reservoirs. And then since 2000, China has doubled its reservoir capacity, adding over 470 billion cubic meters. By the end of 2020, China had Yeah. 98,566 dams and reservoirs uh with a combined storage capacity of 930 or 931 billion cubic meters. So you see between the year 1973 and 2000 the number of dams were reduced but the capacity increased significantly. But if you look carefully in 2025 during the national people's congress water resource minister Lee Guing revealed some stunning numbers. He said that in 2025 China has 94,800 77 dams. And if you compare that number to the number five years ago, China lost 3,689 dams in just 5 years. And that's for 4% of the total. And that doesn't even account for the newly built dams, meaning the real loss could be even greater. What's even more alarming if you look at the numbers, flood control storage capacity dropped to 185.6 cubic meters and that's 15th of what it was in 2020. So in 2020, China's total flot control storage capacity was 930 and then it's been dropped to just oneif of that in five years. So here's the question. How did China lose 4% of its dams but 80% of its flood control capacity in five years? That's the question raised by uh one of China's top hydraologist, Mr. Wi, who now lives in Germany. Now, if you think about it, China has been building larger and larger dams. If anything, they should increase the flood control capacity. They might get rid of some older dams and replace them with the newer ones, but the newer ones are at much higher capacity. So, it's understandable that there the total number of dams is reducing, but the total capacity flood control capacity shouldn't be even when they replace the old dams with new ones because the new ones are mega mega dams. If you really think about it, the answer there's only just one answer in my opinion because those dams were never used for flood control in the first place. These dams were meant to manage flood control, power generation, irrigation, transport and tourism. But most of them have been used for economic gain uh for hydropower, fish farms and tourism. That's why even though China has been building many dams and increasing capacity, the country has been losing flood management capacity. Dams are supposed to release water before flood season so they can store water during floods. But in China, local governments often refuse to release water in dry seasons because they don't want to lose the economic benefits. So they gamble. If it doesn't rain much, they're fine. But if heavy rain comes, they're forced to suddenly discharge massive volumes downstream, turning what could have been a manageable flood into a man-made disaster. And these dams have become ticking time bombs, poorly maintained, mismanaged, and dangerously operated. And they turn annual flood seasons into fullblown crisis. And now let's back to that 4% dam loss figure. It's likely worse. uh once you subtract the newly added dams, the actual loss of old dams could be much higher. So what happened to those thousands of dams that were gone? Some experts believe that the 3689 dams lost between 2020 and 2025 either collapsed or failed during poor construction and age and poor maintenance. If true that number is higher than all dam collapses recorded over 67 years. So um let me give you some numbers. So accord this is public information from the year 1952 to 2021. So in a span of 67 years China officially recorded 33,558 dam collapses. That's an average of 52 dams collapses per year with a failure rate of 5.3 per 10,000 dams. That's already five times higher than the international safety standard of one per 10,000. But think about it. 3600 dams disappeared in just 5 years versus 3500 dam collapses in 67 years. Where did they go? that number is problematic. So um that's why the Chinese hydraologist Mr. Wang he's very well known he's a this is an expert on three gorgeous dam. So he calls the number extremely disturbing. So it strongly suggests that the number of dams that have failed in the past five years is very high is alarmingly high. Now China has a long history of dam disasters. In August 1963, 319 dams failed in the High River Basin in 1973. 10 years later, over 550 dams reportedly collapsed in a single year. In August 1975, 62 dams, including the Bancha Dam, collapsed in Hernand province, killing an estimated 240,000 people and displaced 11 million. The Discovery Channel later ranked this dam collapse uh the number one man-made technological disaster in world history. And since Shinjin Ping took office, unannounced emergency discharges from dams have become common practice causing floods every year for the reason I described above. So now let's talk about the the devastating flooding in Beijing right now. It wasn't just the result of heav he heavy rain. It was largely man-made, a disaster uh driven by mismanagement of the Miwing reservoir, which is the capital city's main water source. Over the years, the Mi Dam hasn't just been filling up from its natural sources, the Chauru and Bhur rivers, but also from the CCP's so-called south to north water diversion project. This massive project moves water uh from the south to the north. So in this case, in the case of the Miin reservoir, it moves water from the Danjango reservoir in southern China all the way to Beijing using gravity. And Danjango sits at 170 m above sea level, which is about 120 meters higher than Beijing's average elevation. So thanks to this height difference, water flows naturally north northbound into the capital. It made sense, right? But here's where it gets strange. Very strange. After reaching Beijing's um Tuanchan lake, you know, this water from the south, somehow the Chinese officials decided to pump that same water, that same water gets pumped uphill into the Miwin reservoir. But the problem is the Ming reservoir is 100 over 100 kilometers away from the city and it's uphill. It's 133 meters higher than Beijing. So the Chinese officials built 103 kilometers long system of channels and pipelines powered by nine pump stations that pushed this water that came from the south uphill uh by 133 meters into this muing reservoir. Now so think about it. The first the water flows naturally downhill then it's forced back uphill. So it's kind of reverse engineering right? But it's that's how China's GDP keeps growing through these inefficient wasteful mega projects. However, the problem just doesn't I mean if it's just wasteful it's a minor issue but this has created a problem that has already become out of control. So since this reverse transfer or uphill transfer began in 2015 and from that point on Min reservoir's water level or or or um the the water volume that it holds skyrocketed. In 2013 the reservoir held just two 800 million cubic meters of water. That's before the project. And then by 2018 that number hit 2.2 billion cubic meters. 2019 it reached 2.6 billion. 2021 it reached 3.3.6 billion cubic meter and by that year the water level has reached 155.3 m. That's already dangerously high. And then in October 2024 it reached 3.58 billion cubic meters. And then on July 29th, 2025, just before the floods, Mi hit a record height of 3.61 billion cubic meters with a water level of 155.52 m. Now, here's the problem. The reservoir's flood warning level is 150 m. The maximum safety limit during flood season is 152 meters. The top of the dam is only 160 m. So by late July, meaning the reservoir was running 3.5 meters above its flood season safety limit. So when the storm hit, officials had no choice. They had to discharge water rapidly or risk dam the dam's failure. But that emergency discharge triggered downstream flood disaster, destroying homes, infrastructure, and likely claiming far more lives than officially reported. And it gets worse. This dam uh was Mim Dam, the this very dam that's responsible for the capital city's water resources was built during the great great leap forward period. It was a time known for poor construction standards. And during the 1976 Tangan earthquake, a landslide nearly caused the dam to collapse. It's said that the main dam is over 100 meters higher than Teneaman Square. If it were breached, flood waters could reach 2 mters deep in Teneaman Square itself. So in short, uh, Muin did not do what a reservoir is supposed to do, mitigate flood risk or reduce peak runoff. Instead, it released nearly all the incoming flood water in a compressed window of time, intensifying the destruction downstream. So, the real root of the July flood disaster in Beijing in suburban lies in years of overfilling the reservoir with water from the south to uh from the south to north diversion project. So officials treated the rise in water levels as a political and economic wing because that's an indication of their local GDP index. So they completely ignore the grave safety risks. When a dam is full to the brim before flood season even begins, it's no longer a protective buffer. It becomes a liability, right? A disaster waiting to happen. But under the CCP's rule, there's no accountability and no respect for human life. The only thing officials know when disaster strikes is is to lie and cover