Zipingpu Dam

Originally published in The Financial Times

The modern world has never faced the threat of dangerous dams on
anything like the scale of the crisis now unfolding in Sichuan in the
aftermath of the earthquake two weeks ago, engineers say.

Originally published in the Financial Times

Last updated: May 16 2008 17:17

If Engineer Yue was worried about lingering just downstream of the dam that has been the focus of fears of catastrophic infrastructure failure caused by China's earthquake, he was certainly not showing it.

Originally published in The New York Times

CHENGDU, China — China mobilized 30,000 additional soldiers to the earthquake-shattered expanses of the nation’s southwestern regions on Wednesday — not just to help victims, but also to shore up weakened dams and other elements of the infrastructure whose failure could compound the disaster.

Listen to Aviva Imhof, International Rivers' Campaigns Director, talk to Warren Olney of National Public Radio’s “To The Point” about the fate of the Zipingpu Dam after the massive earthquake in China on May 12, 2008. While Chinese authorities are now saying the dam and its reservoir are safe, Imhof suggests such reassurances may be premature.

AP Photo/GeoEye Satellite Image

Originally published on Yahoo News

DUJIANGYAN, China - Hundreds of dams around the epicenter of China's earthquake have been damaged and Chinese troops scrambled Wednesday to plug cracks and open sluices to prevent flooding of already devastated communities.

Zipingpu Dam, Sep. 14, 2007 (AP Photo/GeoEye Satellite Image)

The tragic Sichuan Earthquake of May 12, 2008, which killed an estimated 80,000 civilians, also damaged hundreds of dams in Sichuan Province. Soon after the earthquake struck, the Chinese government reported that at least 391 dams had been damaged in the quake, including major cracks on the largest dam in the area, the Zipingpu Dam. Since then, the Ministry of Water Resources has reported that as many as 2,380 dams were damaged in the earthquake.

http://209.157.64.200/focus/news/2014670/posts?page=754

Originally published on CNN.com

SICHUAN PROVINCE, China (CNN) -- China's death toll from a massive earthquake soared by thousands Wednesday as troops rushed to plug "severe cracks" in a dam upriver from one of the hardest hit cities.

Building yet another dam could threaten an ages-old engineering marvel in Sichuan and a key part of China's heritage. But the project is going ahead as authorities smother public debate on its impact.

By David Murphy/DUJIANGYAN, SICHUAN PROVINCE
Far Eastern Economic Review