The bigger question is will the Three Gorges Dam absorb the added pressure as more water accumulates? I doubt anyone knows the answer to that. Also, if the dam does go I was told that there will be all kinds of indications as much as a day or even day and a half before it goes.Lots of strange noises and other indications its about to go.
You gotta also wonder if there is any cavitation going on since from the time the dam was built there were at least 80 cracks in the concrete.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v98omCq1kRA
This short video explains what can happen with to much cavitation.
The CCP is blowing up other dams in the region to lower the pressure on the three gorges,accd. to Breitbart that could save the day but it's hard to say,so much is going on all at once. 6 quakes hit China in 2 days; Three Gorges Dam hit its limit: experts; up to 5.1 could really screw up the dam. Is there a link between dams and earthquakes,hard to say:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-link-between-dams-and-earthquakes-4305816/
The earth is big, and so are the tectonic plates—it doesn’t seem possible that anything humans could do to the earth would have an effect on those immense plates. But evidence is mounting that we cause earthquakes.
I listened in fascination to a presentation from earthquake scientist Christian Klose at the 2006 American Geophysical Union fall meeting in which he showed how coal mining was responsible for earthquakes, including the most-damaging ever in Australia. (The 5.6-magnitude Newcastle earthquake of 1989, though relatively small by international comparison, killed 13 people.) The removal of coal, rock and, especially, water from underground can cause enough stress to trigger an earthquake, Klose said. Other potential earthquake triggers he mentioned were oil and gas extraction, creation of reservoirs behind dams and, he conjectured, sequestering carbon dioxide underground.
Now Science reports that Klose is one of several scientists who are pondering the possibility that last May’s 7.9-magnitude earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province, which left 80,000 dead, could also have had a man-made trigger, this time in the form of the Zipingpu Dam. Then the magnitude-7.9 Wenchuan earthquake struck, many scientists wondered if a reservoir was to blame. Ruling out the much-maligned Three Gorges Dam as too distant.
Interesting article:
Three Gorges Dam deformed but safe, say operators
In a rare revelation, Beijing has admitted that its 2.4-kilometer Three Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River in Hubei province “deformed slightly” after record flooding.
Wang Hao, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an authority on hydraulics who sits on the Ministry of Water Resources’ Yangtze River Administration Commission, has also assured that the dam is sound enough to withstand the impact from floods twice the mass flow rate recorded on Saturday.
Still, Wang’s remarks stoked a volley of mockery after he said the flooding could be a good thing as the dam would only become more rigid the longer it was steeped up to its top.
https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/three-gorges-dam-deformed-but-safe-say-operators/