I was watching a documentary on the Learning Channel the other day about the ten greatest “technological” (man-made?) disasters of all time. They did short pieces on Chernobyl, the Challenger disaster, the Hindenburg, a Korean department store that collapsed, the Titanic, and a few other ones.
The whole time, whenever they cut to commercial, they would say “Coming up: The largest man-made disaster of all time that killed almost a quarter of a million people and you’ve never heard anything about it! Stay tuned…”
When they finally got to Big Disaster Numero Uno, it was about two gigantic dams in Hunan Province in China that burst due to careless engineering in the 1970’s. After the initial flood and ensuing epidemics of cholera, dysentery, and basically every other water-borne disease known to man, the final death toll was about 230,000. And the Chinese government managed to keep the details a secret for nearly thirty years.
The Learning Channel can be entertaining sometimes, but it’s not PBS. Most of its documentaries are more sensationalist trash than sober, responsible TV reporting. In addition, this particular show reported that the Titanic was the first ship ever to make use of the “SOS” distress call, so it has credibility issues from the get-go. I did a few searches and came up with nothing.
Did this happen? And was it as serious as they made it out to be?
As I understand it, the dams were built poorly and along the same river. When the first went, so went the second.
And now, instead of a series of little dams, they’re building one huge gigantic one, flooding a huge area above and destroying ancient cities. And when this dam fails, it’ll destroy a whole lot more.
There’s a great deal of graft going on in China, but the gov’t doesn’t want to admit it. Bad concrete made the first two dams go. I think the megadam is going to have the same problems.
But 230,000 people?!?!? What’s wrong with this world? Pardon me, but the Titanic took 1,500 measley people down with it!* How can the Chinese dam thing not be a major historical event? How have a bunch of books not been written about it? How is there no Chinese Dam Historical Society! How come there’s not one lousy website devoted to the Chinese dam disaster? Not even a message board! No mailing list! I know the Chinese government is secretive, but come on, people! This happened like thirty years ago!
The number of people is measley, compared with the Chinese thing. I don’t mean to imply that the people themselves were measley.
This was real. Take a look at this MSNBC article re: the recent El Salvador quake. Scroll down to the bottom where MSNBC has provided a handy chart of the most devastating quakes. You will see that if the Chinese dam breaks were the result of low quality concrete, they were apparently aided by a magnitude 8 earthquake.
As for the mega dam that **AWB[/] mentions, I believe the common name is the Three Gorges Dam. This does appear to be tragic, not only because of the loss of historic cites, but also because of the huge number of people who are being relocated (voluntarily?) because their village will now be under water.
However, I think it is also clear that China needs to provide electricity to its citizens. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough (“anything” is a better word) about Chinese policy to even have an intelligent opinion on this one.
Now you see, this is what I mean about the Learning Channel. They didn’t mention anything about an earthquake. Or maybe I was getting a snack when they did. Did anybody else see this show?
Slang. Contemptibly small; meager: gave the parking attendant a measly tip.
Infected with measles.
[/offtopic]
Why does one disaster stand out in our minds over another? Perspective, our ability to identify with the victims, and lack of information. We can relate to the 1500 victims of the Titanic more easily than 230k people from a distant foreign culture. After a point, the number of victims ceases to have any impact. When you heard the word genocide, the image is probably of 6 million murdered by the Nazis during WWII, not of the 20 million murdered by the Russian Communists, or 2 million by the Khmer Rouge, or any of the “lesser” incidents in recent history, Argentina, Rwanda, China … Is it any more interesting that more people die of old age on any given day, than are killed in floods? It’s a lot more sensational to die in a dramatic ship sinking than to perish from Cholera.
Would someone with an actual brain please respond to the OP?!
About five minutes after making my last post, I started reading articles about the Tangshan quake mentioned in the MSNBC article. I can find no reference in any of them to any of the deaths resulting from a burst dam. Apparently, the people of Tangshan all died in building collapses.
I guess I just took your reference to 240,000 deaths in the 70’s and mentally matched that up with what I had read in the MSNBC article. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any actual justification for that conclusion. This leads me to the dismal conclusion that there was more than one disaster, in the 70s, in China, that resulted in multi-hundred thousand deaths: one the dam break discussed on TLC and one the Tangshan quake.
So, cuautemhoc don’t lose faith in TLC yet. Any network that will air Junkyard Wars is alright in my book.
Other than the difference between a flood and an earthquake and a different year (the flood was said to be in 1975), the disaster cited by rpinrd and the “worst” distaster have similar numbers of casualties.
Supposedly, during the monsoon the sluice gates were inoperable due to silting and inadequate maintenance. The excess water couldn’t be released and breached the dam.
I can find no evidence of this disaster other than the “worst technological disasters” show, but they named the dam and location so I’ll check again the next time the show runs.
As to how the Chinese government managed to “airbrush” the event out of the history books, please read the following joke;
Alexander the Great, Julius Ceaser and Napolean are standing on the Kremlin wall watching the Soviet Mayday parade of armaments go past below them.
Alexander points to the tanks and exclaims;
“With chariots like that all of Asia would have been mine!”
Ceaser takes one look at the rocket launchers and says;
“With fire arrows like that the Roman empire would never have fallen!”
Napolean points over to a newpaper rack holding copies of Tass and softly mutters;
“And if I had that no one would ever have found out about Waterloo!”
Never forget the power of propaganda when a free press does not exist.
