Destroyed buildings in the earthquake-damaged town of Beichuan, Sichuan Province, ChinaPhoto: AFP/GETTY
Chinese earthquake may have been man-made, sayscientists
An earthquake that killed at least 80,000 people in Sichuan last year may have been triggeredby an enormous dam just miles from the epicentre
By Malcolm Moore in ShanghaiLast Updated: 12:06AM GMT 03 Feb 2009The 511ft-high Zipingpu damholds 315 million tonnes of water and lies just 550 yardsfrom the fault line, and threemiles from the epicentre, of theSichuan earthquake.Now scientists in China and theUnited States believe theweight of water, and the effectof it penetrating into the rock,could have affected thepressure on the fault lineunderneath, possiblyunleashing a chain of rupturesthat led to the quake.Fan Xiao, the chief engineer of the Sichuan Geology andMineral Bureau in Chengdu,said it was "very likely" that the construction and filling of the reservoir in 2004 had led to the disaster."There have been many cases in which a water reservoir has triggered an earthquake," said Mr Fan. "Thisearthquake was very unusual for this area.There have been no seismic activities greater than a magnitude seven quake along this particular seismic beltbefore."The 7.9 magnitude quake struck last May and left more than five million people homeless. It remains a raw andemotional topic for most Chinese, and the government has been quick to quash any suggestion that Zipingpumay have been responsible for the catastrophe. Researchers have been denied access to seismological andgeological data to examine the earthquake further.Zipingpu is only one of nearly 400 hydroelectric dams in the earthquake zone. Mr Fan said the government hadbeen warned of the danger of building so many large-scale projects in a seismically active area, but that thewarnings had gone unheeded.
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2009-2-4Chinese earthquake may have been…telegraph.co.uk/…/Chinese-earthqu…1/2
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