Preliminary
There are several articles published in the journal People's Yellow River
in 1991, which report on the history and present status of the Sanmenxia
dam (completed in 1960 三门峡水利枢纽), and are very instructive. I shall try to translate some of these from time to time, and the translations (sometimes abridged) will appear in these subheadings.
The damsite is located in Henan province at the present city of
Sanmenxia.
The area played a strategic role throughout historic times because it provided easy crossing of the Yellow River linking the present Shanxi (山西) and Henan (河南) provinces.
I took the following picture while I visited the site in 1994. The design of this dam is unique in that it must be able to handle
sediment
flushing. Before the arrival of the flood, the reservoir is drained
by opening up the
bottom and
side
outlets.
The draining will also flush out much of the sediment cumulated
from the last flood.