Not all damns are hydro power plants, many are just for water, the kind of steady water supply that nuclear and coal energy need.

Then China had to rebuild the dam in the same location a few years later because, without the flood control that Banqiao Dam was built to provide, there was regular and catastrophic downstream flooding. Anyone who blames those deaths on hydroelectric power is being less than honest. The alternative wasn't those people not dying; the alternative was them dying from dam failure anyway, but without the dam providing power in the meantime. The dam failure seems to have been a direct result of trying to use it to control downstream flooding.

OP wasn't referring to deaths, only that its a demonstrable alternative [1]. Some deaths might be warranted over a fuel that has no waste disposal method.

[1] Nuclear is hated due to superstition and fear-mongering. Please don't add to it; it's our only thoroughly demonstrated alternative to large-scale fossil fuel consumption.