Fengman Dam

Fengman Dam, hydroelectric and flood-control project on the Sungari (Songhua) River some 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Jilin (Kirin) in Jilin province, China. The dam was first constructed by the Japanese in 1937–42 at the same time they were building the Sup’ung (Shuifeng) Dam at the Korean (now North Korean) border with Liaoning province as part of a large-scale development of hydroelectric power for industry in their puppet state of Manchukuo (Manchuria). The project included constructing a massive dam, 298 feet (91 metres) in height and 3,542 feet (1,080 metres) long and flooding the upper Sungari valley to form a vast reservoir some 45 miles (72 km) long. The original plan provided for the installation of eight turbogenerators. The power plant began production in 1943, but it never operated at full capacity, and the project was never completed.

Toward the end of World War II, the dam was damaged and neglected and began to leak. In 1945 Soviet occupation forces in the region removed almost all of the hydroelectric plant to the Soviet Union, together with a cement plant that had been built to supply materials for constructing the dam. After 1949 the Chinese communist government began restoration work. The dam was extended and strengthened and, with Soviet aid, its generating equipment was restored under the First Five-Year Plan (1953–57). The dam’s importance was greatly increased with the completion in 1954 of a high-tension transmission line connecting major centres of industry in northeastern China.

The Fengman Dam also plays a role in flood control on the Sungari River, the flow of which varies greatly. Despite the dam’s vast storage capacity and the improvements carried out in the early 1950s, it became inadequate, and two subsidiary dams were subsequently added.