China’s Three Gorges Dam has withstood the biggest test of its short life, after seeing its biggest flood crest since it was completed in 2009.

With speeds of 70,000 cubic meters per second, flood waters hit the Three Gorges Dam early this week. That’s 20,000 cubic meters per second more than the flood that killed 4,150 people in 1998. According to the Chinese government, the $24 billion dam is able to withstand 22 million cubic meters of extra flood water, and that without the Three Gorges Dam, smaller dams and the towns and cities along the lower reaches of the Yangtze would be seriously endangered.

China is expecting six to eight typhoons this year, and although the dam is one of the most controversial projects the country has ever dealt with, it has already proven its worth as it spans China’s Yangtze River in Yichang, Hubei Province. It is the world’s biggest hydroelectric project and is now instrumental in helping to control flood efforts that plague the country every year.

Although there have already been 700 people who have lost their lives since the start of the year due to torrential rains and flooding, if not for the Three Gorges Dam and efforts made by the Chinese government to help control the situation, that number very easily could be in the thousands due to a much bigger catastrophe.