Possible Link Between Dam and China Quake

[Coventina]

Source: New York Times

BEIJING — Nearly nine months after a devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, China, left 80,000 people dead or missing, a growing number of American and Chinese scientists are suggesting that the calamity was triggered by a four-year-old reservoir built close to the earthquake’s geological fault line.

A Columbia University scientist who studied the quake has said that it may have been triggered by the weight of 320 million tons of water in the Zipingpu Reservoir less than a mile from a well-known major fault. His conclusions, presented to the American Geophysical Union in December, coincide with a new finding by Chinese geophysicists that the dam caused significant seismic changes before the earthquake.

Scientists emphasize that the link between the dam and the failure of the fault has not been conclusively proved, and that even if the dam acted as a trigger, it would only have hastened a quake that would have occurred at some point.

Nonetheless, any suggestion that a government project played a role in one of the biggest natural disasters in recent Chinese history is likely to be politically explosive.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/world/asia/06quake.html?ref=world

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Crikey!

I hope the Chinese citizens hear about this!

[jaksavage]

1. China is hard on its land

I don't know if it is the Three gorges dam on the yangtzee, but that system really got screwn.
2 million displaced, river species wiped. Concentrated pollution.

[jwirr]

2. That is very interesting. We humans can influence nature. Are you

listening Inhofe?

[emlev]

3. Search YouTube for: HAARP China Earthquake

And you'll see another possibility.

[Ediacara]

7. any science in that haarpsteria?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. None.

[melm00se]

4. how?

the Chinese filter the hell out of their internet and heavily censor their press reports

[dysfunctional press]

5. why doesn't california have earthquakes after heavy rains and snow?

and since most fault lines are pretty deep underground- don't they already have tons upon tons of earth and rock on top of them?

[Ediacara]

6. Yes

I really really question this press report.... The weight of the water in the dam (although heavy) is probably somewhere near 1% of the weight of the rocks already in the fault zone.