Another deadly landslide at a hydropower construction site in Fujian, south-east China, highlights the growing risks of dam building in mountainous regions of Asia. Chinadialogue.net reports.
Landslide at Chinese dam site signals looming risks
Landslide destroys dam in Three Gorges region
Geologists predict more frequent catastrophes in China’s Three Gorges Dam region, after landslides wipe out a hydropower plant. Fan Xiao and Yang Yong, the authors of several reports for Probe International, speak to thethirdpole.net about a disaster-prone region made more perilous by intensive hydropower development and call for new risk assessments to be carried out.
Giant landslide likely caused by Xiluodu Dam impoundment, says Chinese geologist
(July 30, 2013) Fan Xiao, a Chinese geologist and chief engineer of the Regional Geological Survey Team of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, says analysis of the recent landslide in Yunnan Province indicates that impoundment of the nearby Xiluodu Dam reservoir most likely caused the event and that more can be expected when the reservoir is filled again. Sharply rising or rapidly falling reservoir water levels pose a threat to geological stability, he says, and can trigger disaster.
Three Gorges Dam trashes Yangtze, images show
(July 19, 2013) Images show the ugly side of China’s grand dam and its effects on the country’s beloved Yangtze River: rubbish crusts, floating islands of garbage — a plague of filth and issues that exacerbate existing problems and introduce new dangers. Policymic.com reports.
The landslide story
(May 22, 2013) Chinese experts in landslide and geohazard protection fear debris flows, triggered by an epic 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province, may pose a threat to the region for two decades. A tremendous amount of loose material from the landslides is suspended on hillslopes, ready to be washed away by rain. The potential for ongoing landslides and secondary hazards, such as flooding and blocked rivers, they argue, warrants further investigation.
On alert: RIS risk amid rash of earthquakes in China’s Sichuan-Yunnan region
(March 22, 2013) A new report, exclusive to Probe International, calls for urgent monitoring of China’s large dams in areas prone to seismic hazard. These areas may be at increased risk from dam reservoir-induced seismicity (RIS). Scientists have observed that reservoir impoundment may not only increase the risk of strong earthquakes, particularly in areas already vulnerable to high-intensity seismic activity, but may represent a more pronounced risk in the first few years after a dam is filled.
Residents struggle in China’s “model community” as millions set to be resettled
(January 22, 2013) China’s largest-ever forced relocation effort, in the northwestern gateway province of Shaanxi, is set to transform the lives of more than 2.8 million people over a period of 10 years. The massive migration, even by China’s standards, is currently underway in part to make way for another of the country’s vast infrastructure projects, the enormous south-north water transfer scheme; in part due to environmental degradation – geological instability caused by deforestation, and in part as a result of socioeconomic inevitability – a formidable long-range political objective to urbanize impoverished, rural populations. Drawing on his conversations with migrants, writer Andrew Stokols in this update for Chinadialogue.net, observes the human cost of China’s quest for modernity which has left many migrants struggling to meet new expenses and feeling stung by a loss of independence, purpose and stability.
Trouble on the Yangtze
(December 19, 2012) A central government plan to dramatically increase China’s reliance on non-fossil fuels will derive two-thirds of that target from hydropower – “an increase on par with adding nearly one Three Gorges Dam a year,” reports Jane Qiu for Science magazine. In her article on over-development of the country’s river pulse, the once mighty Yangtze, Qiu looks at the threat China’s damming fever poses to river habitats and species, the calamity potential of dam construction in quake-prone regions and mounting criticism of China’s biased environmental impact assessment process.
Three Gorges Dam project complete but still under fire
(July 17, 2012) Probe International of Toronto has long been a critic of the Three Gorges dam project. Executive director Patricia Adams paints a scathing picture of the dam’s legacy so far in an article that appeared in the Huffington Post.
New wave of Three Gorges-sized dams raise old fears
(July 6, 2012) Experts fear a proposed dam cascade slated for the Jinsha River, a tributary of the upper Yangtze River, could spell disaster. Reports on dam construction in western China’s seismic hazard zones and the risks of over-damming, released by Probe International earlier this year, are highlighted.
German firm to help map landslide threat at Three Gorges Dam
(June 22, 2012) The threat of geological disaster in the Three Gorges Dam reservoir area has prompted authorities to call on outside experts for help.
Three Gorges Dam: Another 110,000 to join exodus out of harm’s way
(May 17, 2012) The latest phase of the Three Gorges Dam relocation effort is expected to move 110,000 out of the Three Gorges Dam danger zone to safer ground (earlier estimates put that number at around 100,000). A new report by Beijing’s Caixin Online looks deeper at the area’s growing instability, the disagreements over who pays for what, and how residents are coping as the earth shifts, literally, beneath them.
Press Release: Three Gorges tourism – boom or bust?
(April 24, 2012) The Three Gorges Dam project was supposed to energize the Three Gorges region but a new study from Probe International reveals the dam is jeopardizing a once spectacular gorges region and water tourist idyll, and has drained the area’s vitality, stability and ecology.
China’s Three Gorges Dam prompts more evacuations
(April 19, 2012) Around 20,000 residents from the vicinity of China’s massive Three Gorges Dam face relocation because their homes are at risk from “constant landslides.” Patricia Adams, editor of online news portal Three Gorges Probe, writes: “Twenty years later, the critics have been proven right on all counts.”
New upheaval: 20,000 to relocate over landslide risk
(April 18, 2012) This week, China National Radio reported a total of nearly 100,000 people in the Three Gorges Dam reservoir region may face relocation over the next three to five years due to the threat of natural disasters. Today, China Daily’s U.S. edition reports another 20,000 in Central China’s Hubei province are slated for relocation due to the risk of landslides in the dam area. The relocation process is already underway; schools and hospitals in harm’s way to be evacuated first.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
Other News Sources
Probe International 