(TibetanReview.net, Jan17’25) –Reversing its initial claim that the devastating earthquake which jolted Tibet’s Mt Everest county of Dingri on Jan 7 morning had caused no damage to dams, China has now admitted that problems, including cracks, have been detected at five of the 14 such structures that have been inspected.
Three of the affected hydropower dams have since been emptied, Reuters Jan 16 cited the Tibet emergency management official as saying at a press conference.
In fact, in Dingri, the county in which the quake’s epicentre Tsogo Township is located, the walls of one hydrodam have tilted, prompting the evacuation of about 1,500 people from six villages downstream to higher ground, the official has said.
At another hydrodam, monitoring devices have been installed as it is being drained, the report cited him a saying.
China’s latest media reports say that as of Jan 13 noon, a total of 126 people have died, 407 have been rescued, 61,500 people affected, over 47,500 individuals relocated, and over 27,200 houses damaged, of which 3,612 have collapsed, following the Jan 7 earthquake.
China has severely restricted access to the earthquake hit areas, banning the independent media and the movement even of the local Tibetans, while aid providers have been made to deliver their donations to government agencies rather taking them where they may be seen to be most urgently needed.
The Dingri earthquake has brought into sharp focus China’s late Dec 2024 approval of a project to build the world’s largest dam in the seismically active Himalayas over the Yarlung Tsangpo just before the river enters India where it is known as Siang River in Arunachal Pradesh and then the Brahmaputra further downstream.
Geological experts have questioned the wisdom of approving such a dam, which would be three times the size of the world’s existing largest dam, the Three Gorges Dam.
However, geostrategic experts have no doubt that China’s approval of this project on the Yarlung Tsangpo is more than anything else a military decision.