Dam 'not to blame' for natural disasters
By Li Xinran |
August 4, 2010, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE chairman of the Three Gorges Corporation has denied any connection between the world's largest hydropower complex and recent natural disasters after some voices attributed them to the construction of the dam and its water storage.
Cao Guangjing said the Three Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River may have caused some slight landslides on some tributaries flowing into the dam's reservoir but had nothing to do with the recent torrential rain and floods.
Cao said the water storage of the dam ranked only 22nd worldwide and it was normal that there should be slight problems in the early years of a reservoir because of its unstable sides.
But these would gradually disappear and they had nothing to do with recent floods.
In an interview with Xinhua news agency, Cao emphasized efforts made in past years on disaster control and prevention.
He said that from when the first water flowed into the reservoir in 2003, there had been only a very few landslides. These were "without casualties or huge losses, which is a great achievement," he said.
Cao denied the dam's water retention during this year's flood season had triggered the floods that hit Chongqing on July 19.
Cao also revealed that the Three Gorges Dam was designed to handle 98,800 cubic meters of water flow per second - a once in 1,000 years event - but had been tested to more than 113,000 cubic meters per second - something that would only happen once every 10,000 years.
Meanwhile, a project to enable a key dam on central China's Hanjiang River to control "100-year floods" is nearing completion, officials said yesterday, days after heavy rains raised the river to its highest level in three decades, according to Xinhua.
Workers have finished raising the Danjiangkou Dam to allow the maximum water level to rise from 162 meters to 176.6 meters, adding 11.6 billion cubic meters to the reservoir's current capacity of 17.45 billion cubic meters.
Liu Song, an official with Danjiangkou Water Control Project Administration, said the five-year project, estimated to cost 2.4 billion yuan (US$354 million), was "almost finished."
The dam could operate at full capacity once it passed evaluation and residents in the area were properly resettled, he said.
It had already played a pivotal role when flood peaks came down from the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River on July 19 and 25, said He Ping, head of the administration.
Cao Guangjing said the Three Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River may have caused some slight landslides on some tributaries flowing into the dam's reservoir but had nothing to do with the recent torrential rain and floods.
Cao said the water storage of the dam ranked only 22nd worldwide and it was normal that there should be slight problems in the early years of a reservoir because of its unstable sides.
But these would gradually disappear and they had nothing to do with recent floods.
In an interview with Xinhua news agency, Cao emphasized efforts made in past years on disaster control and prevention.
He said that from when the first water flowed into the reservoir in 2003, there had been only a very few landslides. These were "without casualties or huge losses, which is a great achievement," he said.
Cao denied the dam's water retention during this year's flood season had triggered the floods that hit Chongqing on July 19.
Cao also revealed that the Three Gorges Dam was designed to handle 98,800 cubic meters of water flow per second - a once in 1,000 years event - but had been tested to more than 113,000 cubic meters per second - something that would only happen once every 10,000 years.
Meanwhile, a project to enable a key dam on central China's Hanjiang River to control "100-year floods" is nearing completion, officials said yesterday, days after heavy rains raised the river to its highest level in three decades, according to Xinhua.
Workers have finished raising the Danjiangkou Dam to allow the maximum water level to rise from 162 meters to 176.6 meters, adding 11.6 billion cubic meters to the reservoir's current capacity of 17.45 billion cubic meters.
Liu Song, an official with Danjiangkou Water Control Project Administration, said the five-year project, estimated to cost 2.4 billion yuan (US$354 million), was "almost finished."
The dam could operate at full capacity once it passed evaluation and residents in the area were properly resettled, he said.
It had already played a pivotal role when flood peaks came down from the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River on July 19 and 25, said He Ping, head of the administration.
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