FENG-MAN DAM

Wade-Giles romanization Feng-man Shui-pa, Pinyin Fengman Shuiba hydroelectric and flood-control project on the Sungari River some 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Chi-lin (Kirin) in Kirin sheng (province), China. The dam was constructed by the Japanese between 1937 and 1942 simultaneously with the Sup'ung Dam in Liaoning sheng as part of a large-scale development of hydroelectric power for industry in their puppet state of Manchukuo (Manchuria). The project included the construction of a massive dam, 298 feet (91 m) in height and 3,542 feet (1,080 m) long, as well as the flooding of the upper Sungari valley to form a vast reservoir some 45 miles (72 km) long. The original plan was for the installation of eight turbogenerators. The power plant began production in 1943, although it never operated at full capacity, and the project was never completed. Toward the end of World War II, the dam itself suffered from damage and neglect and began to leak seriously. In 1945 the Soviet occupation forces removed almost all of the generating plant to the Soviet Union, together with a cement plant that had been installed to supply materials for construction of the dam. After 1949 restoration work was undertaken by the Chinese communist government. The dam was extended and strengthened and its generating equipment restored (partly with aid from the Soviet Union) under the First Five-Year Plan (195357). The dam's importance was greatly increased with the completion in 1954 of a high-tension transmission line connecting major centres of industry in Manchuria. The Feng-man Dam also plays a role in flood control on the Sungari River, which has a great variation in flow. But even its vast storage capacity and the improvements carried out in the early 1950s proved inadequate, and two subsidiary dams were subsequently added.