When the Three Gorges Dam Collapses
On that terrible day, after months of rain,
when the Three Gorges Dam collapses,
behind it like a tsunami wave down the Yangtze,
knocking down skyscrapers as shoddily built
as the dam itself like bowling pins,
erasing great cities of Wuhan, Nanking
and Shanghai off the world map.
and Shanghai off the world map.
On that terrible day, and the days that follow,
600 million people will either lose their lives,
lose their homes, lose their livelihoods,
lose their minds, or lose their patience with
a government that cut corners on
the largest hydropower project in the world.
On that terrible day, they’ll also recall days
of its too quick construction,
of its more than mile-wide failures
of poor rebar, of substandard concrete
not connected to bedrock,
but with so much water held back
by its massive shoulders
it lengthened the day and flattened the poles.
On that terrible day, they will blame Tibet,
where headwaters of the Yangtze spring,
on that terrible day, they will blame Western
engineers who pointed out flaws of the project
and were called racists because of it,
on that terrible day, they will blame
Mao Tse-Tung, who, after the great floods of 1949,
brought Communism to China
and reseeded an old idea
Mao Tse-Tung, who, after the great floods of 1949,
brought Communism to China
and reseeded an old idea
to build a Three Gorges Dam
so it would never happen again.
so it would never happen again.
But on that terrible day
it will happen again,
on that terrible day, and the days that follow,
not only will China lose countless souls,
not only will China lose
its formidable face forever,
its formidable face forever,
not only will China be
thrown back to a medieval past,
thrown back to a medieval past,
but countries of the whole world
will also groan in pain
will also groan in pain
from the repercussions of its ancient
and once-wise brother
sold out to the mythology
and once-wise brother
sold out to the mythology
of short-term gain.
~ Cynthia Gallaher (July 19, 2020)
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