(December 28, 2008) The biggest potential disaster, Pearce reports, was averted at the Zipingpu dam, just 17 kilometres from the quake’s epicenter. “Holding back more than a cubic kilometer of water … the hydroelectric dam was the largest of a new, cheap design with a rock core and concrete face. As the tight valley sides juddered, the structure was squeezed and ended up 18 centimeters downstream, and 70 cm lower.

The concrete was ripped apart but the core of the dam survived.” Pearce goes on to explain that had the quake occurred just two months later during the monsoon – when the reservoir would have been full and the stresses on it greater – “Zipingpu and the other dams would probably have failed,” inundating Dujiangyan, a city just downstream of the dam. Engineers managed to empty the reservoir and it now awaits repair.

Fred Pearce, New Scientist, December 28, 2008