1975 Banqiao Dam failure
The 1975 Banqiao Dam failure (simplified Chinese: 河南“75·8”水库溃坝; traditional Chinese: 河南「75·8」水庫潰壩) was the collapse of 62 dams, including the Banqiao Dam, in Henan, China in August 1975 under the influence of Typhoon Nina. The dam failure created the third-deadliest flood in history which affected a total population of 10.15 million and inundated around 30 cities and counties of 12,000 square kilometers (or 3 million acres), with an estimated death toll ranging from 26,000 to 240,000. The flood also caused the collapse of 6.8 million houses. The dam failure took place during the Cultural Revolution when most people were busy with the "revolution"; the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as well as the Chinese government subsequently hid the details of the disaster until the 1990s, when "The Great Floods in China's History (中国历史大洪水)," a book prefaced by Qian Zhengying who served as the Minister of Water Resources of China in the 1970s and 1980s, revealed details of the event to the public for the first time.

Most of the dams that collapsed in this disaster were built with the help of experts from the Soviet Union or during the Chinese Great Leap Forward. The construction of the dams thus emphasized the goal of retaining water and overlooked their capacities to prevent floods, while the quality of the dams was also compromised due to the Great Leap Forward. Some experts have also pointed out that the Great Leap Forward as well as "Learn from Dazhai in agriculture" severely damaged the ecosystem and forest cover in the region, which was a major cause of the flood, and the government's mishandling of the dam failure contributed to the casualties. The official documents of the disaster were declassified in 2005 by the Chinese government. In May 2005, the Banqiao Dam failure was rated No.1 in "The Ultimate 10 Technological Disasters" of the world by Discovery Channel, outranking the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
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simplified Chinese
Concept
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traditional Chinese
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collapse
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Banqiao Dam
LOC
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Henan, China
LOC
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DIS
None
third-deadliest flood in history
UNK
None
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Concept
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ORG
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Qian Zhengying
Concept
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ORG
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LOC
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Concept
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Discovery Channel
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Chernobyl nuclear disaster
Concept
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1975 Banqiao Dam failure
Concept
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located in the administrative territorial entity
member of political party