About 2,000 troops were sent to work on a dam near the epicenter of Monday’s earthquake, state-run media reported.
The Zipingpu dam, upriver from Dujiangyan in Sichuan province, was in “great danger,” the Xinhua news agency reported.
China.org said that the 7.9-magnitude earthquake had caused “severe cracks” in the dam.
The “plant and associated buildings have collapsed and some are partly sunk,” it said of the hydropower station.
The Ministry of Water Resources said that an irrigation system and Dujiangyan City — which has a population of about 630,000 — “would be swamped,” if major problems emerged at the dam, China.org said.
More information also available at Sky News.
Update: The dam is now reported to be stable and safe.
Update 2: Updated to a correct photo of the Zipingpu Dam, as the Internation Rivers website had an incorrect photo.
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Tags: China, dams, earthquakes, river, Sichuan, Zipingpu Dam
3 comments
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 8:39 am
Peter Polito
Dave, don’t you work down river from a century old dam along an active fault margin? Makes you wonder . . .
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Dave Schumaker
So true! It’s not something I normally think about. Out of sight, out of mind I guess.
Even more interesting is that it’s technically the “type locality” for the San Andreas fault…
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Bob Twannkle
Thing is this dam should probably never been built along a fault line. The weight of the water may have triggered the quake quite possibly. This things was only completed in 2006.