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| Leshan Buddha - if the toes are wet, the area is flooding at an alarming rate. |
This Buddha statue is 200 feet tall and 1200 years old. News reports have mentioned this level of flooding as a very bad sign in China.
The Three Gorges Dam tailwater is backing up on the western side and escaping at the max rate on the eastern side. Even with all the floodgates open, the artificial lake may rush over the dam's top and force a collapse. Water is flowing in at 75 million cubic feet per second and releasing the maximum of only 50 million cubic feet per second. Those figures are rounded; no one trusts the government to tell the truth about this.
As many have said, this is the same scenario as the Midland, Michigan area, where one earthen dam collapsed and caused the collapse of the next earthen dam downstream.
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| This temple on an island in the river may be even more swamped than this photo shows. |
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| This photo shows how high the river must be to reach the top windows. |
