(February 4, 2009) Last year’s devastating Sichuan earthquake, which took at least 69,000 lives, may have been unleashed by the huge Zipingpu Dam. New scientific evidence links the impoundment of the Zipingpu reservoir to the activation of a fault line near the dam site. A thorough scientific assessment is needed before China builds more dams in earthquake-prone areas.
A link between dams and earthquakes?
(February 3, 2009) The earth is big, and so are the tectonic plates—it doesn’t seem possible that anything humans could do to the earth would have an effect on those immense plates. But evidence is mounting that we cause earthquakes.
Telegraph: Chinese earthquake may have been man-made, says scientists
(February 3, 2009) British newspaper Telegraph has joined an evergrowing list of international media outlets promoting the recent theory that last year’s devastating Sichuan earthquake was not an entirely ‘natural’ disaster. That it was potentially caused by the added pressure on the fault line as a result of the Zipingpu dam reservoir being constructed.
Did a new hydropower dam trigger China’s deadly 2008 earthquake?
(February 2, 2009) The devastating earthquake that killed 80,000 people in China’s Sichuan Province last May may have been triggered by a recently built hydropower dam that lies only three miles from the quake’s epicenter, some researchers are arguing.
Scientists build case that Zipingpu dam triggered China’s devastating earthquake
(January 28, 2009) Since China’s deadly May 12 earthquake, Fan Xiao, China’s chief engineer of the Regional Geology Investigation Team of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, has been a lone voice calling for an investigation into the possibility that the Zipingpu dam reservoir, just a few kilometers from the epicenter, might have induced the earthquake.
Fearing for its safety, Three Gorges’ Fengjie town plans another move
(January 28, 2009) Fearing for their safety, residents of landslide-prone Fengjie in the heart of the Three Gorges reservoir have no choice but to move their town for the second time in a decade.
Chinese geologist says Zipingpu dam reservoir may have triggered China’s deadly quake, calls for investigation
(January 26, 2009) Fan Xiao, Chief Engineer of the Regional Geology Investigation Team of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, says scientists must investigate if Zipingpu dam triggered devastating 2008 earthquake, describes massive quake-damage to dams, rebuts recent Science Times article.
Columbia geophysical hazards scientist says evidence shows dam reservoir likely triggered China’s great quake of 2008
(January 26, 2009) Christian Klose, a geophysical hazards research scientist from Columbia University in New York, says geophysical data suggests that the Zipingpu dam reservoir — just a few kilometers from the epicenter of China’s great quake of 2008 — likely triggered the deadly quake and explains how it happened.
FACT SHEET: Earthquake Fatalities High in 2008
(January 6, 2009) The number of earthquake-related fatalities across the world was much higher in 2008 than in recent years.
Water brief: Three Gorges Dam
(January 1, 2009) In The World’s Water 2008-2009, the Pacific Institute’s Dr. Gleick examines the usual anticipated benefits of the Three Gorges Dam: power, navigation and flood control and the growing list of problems — serious impacts on fisheries, coastal erosion due to vastly lower sediment flow in the Yangtze, landslides, earthquakes and social unrest due to the displacement of millions of people.
China quakes, but the dams don’t break
(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.”
Chinese scientists talk about the Zipingpu reservoir-triggered earthquake
(December 15, 2008) Top Chinese scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have dismissed the possibility that the Zipingpu dam reservoir could have induced China’s devastating 2008 earthquake, complaining that the media has been “incessantly questioning the wisdom of building more and more hydro dams in earthquake-prone southwest China” in the wake of last year’s quake.
Beijing officials downplay Three Gorges landslide threat
(December 4, 2008) In a delayed response to two major landslides in the Three Gorges reservoir last month, officials in Beijing now say the slides pose no danger to local residents or shipping, and that natural factors triggered the landslides, not the filling of the Three Gorges dam’s reservoir.
Three Gorges farmers should shun fertilizer, US scientists say
(October 29, 2008) Farmers should cut back on fertilizers during a flood season that can last as long as six months to help mitigate ecological damage in China’s Three Gorges Dam region, according to US scientists quoted by Bloomberg.
Major landslides hit Three Gorges region
(December 1, 2008) On November 29, a major landslide hit Wu Gorge, one of the deepest canyons upstream of the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River, Xinhua reported on December 1.
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