A dam blocking a swollen “quake lake” threatening 1.3 million people in southwest China was in no danger of imminent collapse, state media said yesterday, as workers began to drain the water.
The Tangjiashan quake lake, which had built up after landslides blocked a river in the May 12 earthquake, had reached critical levels by Friday because of heavy rain.
Earlier yesterday, hundreds of police and soldiers opened a sluice channel to drain water from the lake and then began excavating another, state media said.
“The dam is in no danger of collapse in the foreseeable period,” Xinhua news agency quoted Fan Xiaoguang, deputy commander of the Chengdu Military Area Command, as saying.
The agency also said heavy rainfall, which could heighten the risk of flooding, was unlikely over the next 10 days. The danger of a serious aftershock that could collapse the dam was also remote, it said.
However, the lake’s water levels continued to climb slightly after workers opened the channel, said Rao Xiping, head of the government hydrometeorological station in Beichuan — one of the areas worst-hit by the quake.
Rao said the outgoing water flow needed to increase by more than double to drain the lake.
“But the dam is safe now,” Xinhua quoted Rao as saying.
The agency had earlier said water levels had risen by nearly 10cm from early morning to mid-afternoon yesterday, adding about 10 million cubic meters of water volume to the lake.
Soldiers and police dug the channel to stop the lake from bursting its banks and emptying 220 million cubic meters of water downstream.
The lake has become one of the most pressing issues in the aftermath of the quake that struck Sichuan Province, killing 69,134 and leaving millions homeless.
The 7.9-magnitude quake triggered massive landslides that blocked rivers and created more than 30 unstable “quake lakes,” with the Tangjiashan one on the Jianjiang river being considered the most dangerous.
Up to 1.3 million people were deemed to be in danger if the vast piles of rock and debris that have blocked the river for the past month burst open, officials had warned.
More than 250,000 people have been evacuated from the downstream area, but many others would have to be moved if the dam collapsed due to the pressure of the water, Xinhua said.
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
RSS