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), 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 and Henan 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.