75 million people live downstream of the Three Gorges Dam in China.
Dam Safety Analysis
Chapter Ten
"For the Three Gorges design, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake occurring
on a fault 17 kilometres away is used for structural analysis."
http://www.threegorgesprobe.org/pi/do***ents/three_gorges/damming3g/ch10.html
Quake in China Kills Thousands
7.9-Magnitude Temblor, Centered in Sichuan, Is Country's Worst in Decades
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051200122.html?hpid=topnews
Scientific American article from a couple of months ago.
March 25, 2008
China's Three Gorges Dam: An Environmental Catastrophe?
"Surveys show that the Three Gorges region may be next.
Chinese Academy of Engineering scholar Li Wangping
re****ts on the CTGPC's Web site that the area registered
822 tremors in the seven months after the September 2006
reservoir-level increase. So far, none have been severe
enough to cause serious damage. But by 2009, the dam's
water level is set to be raised to its full 575-foot capacity
and then lowered about 100 feet (30 meters) during flood
season. That increase in water pressure, in water fluctuation
and in land covered by the reservoir, Fan says, makes
for a "very large possibility" that the situation will worsen"
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=chinas-three-gorges-dam-disaster
Reservoir-induced Seismicity in China (pdf)
LINYUE CHEN1 and PRADEEP TALWANI1
Abstract-A review of case histories of reservoir-induced seismicity (RIS)
in China shows that it mainly occurs in granitic and karst terranes.
Seismicity in granitic terranes is mainly associated with ****e
pressure diffusion whereas in karst terranes the chemical effect of water
appears to play a major role in triggering RIS. In view of the
characteristic
features of RIS in China, we can expect moderate earthquakes to be induced
by the construction of the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River.
http://scsn.seis.sc.edu/Publications/pageoph98/pageoph98.pdf
A major dam burst at the Three Gorges could be one
of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.
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