2010 looks like year of geologic disasters
By Wang Xiang |
August 21, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
IT'S been a particularly cataclysmic year in China, with 10 times more geological disasters in the first half of this year than in the first six months of 2009.
Global climate change and more active crustal movements are behind this year's surge of 26,009 geological disasters in China from January to July, said Xu Shaoshi, head of the Land and Resources Ministry, as quoted by Xinhua news agency yesterday.
The disasters caused 843 deaths, not including the 1,407 victims buried by a massive mudslide this month in their hometown in Gansu Province.
There were only 10,500 geological disasters in China in 2009.
But experts said it was a misconception to blame the mudslides ravaging northwest China on hydropower plants the country has built along major rivers.
The extreme rain in China this year caused the mudslides, said Zhang Zuocheng, an expert with the China Geological Survey, according to The Beijing News. Zhang said the earthquake that hit Sichuan Province in 2008 worsened the situation.
"The earthquake jolted many mountains which loosened the earth, the strong rain soddened the slopes and landslides happen," Xu said.
He denied that the hydropower plants on Chinese rivers were to blame for the frequent mudslides, saying their construction and the disasters were only a coincidence.
"As long as these hydropower stations were constructed according to the national standards," Zhang told the newspaper, "the recent mudslides were absolutely not related to the hydropower stations." China has at least 20,000 potential mudslide slopes, most of them in the west, Xu said.
Global climate change and more active crustal movements are behind this year's surge of 26,009 geological disasters in China from January to July, said Xu Shaoshi, head of the Land and Resources Ministry, as quoted by Xinhua news agency yesterday.
The disasters caused 843 deaths, not including the 1,407 victims buried by a massive mudslide this month in their hometown in Gansu Province.
There were only 10,500 geological disasters in China in 2009.
But experts said it was a misconception to blame the mudslides ravaging northwest China on hydropower plants the country has built along major rivers.
The extreme rain in China this year caused the mudslides, said Zhang Zuocheng, an expert with the China Geological Survey, according to The Beijing News. Zhang said the earthquake that hit Sichuan Province in 2008 worsened the situation.
"The earthquake jolted many mountains which loosened the earth, the strong rain soddened the slopes and landslides happen," Xu said.
He denied that the hydropower plants on Chinese rivers were to blame for the frequent mudslides, saying their construction and the disasters were only a coincidence.
"As long as these hydropower stations were constructed according to the national standards," Zhang told the newspaper, "the recent mudslides were absolutely not related to the hydropower stations." China has at least 20,000 potential mudslide slopes, most of them in the west, Xu said.
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