Hundreds of Hydropower Stations at Risk from Recent Quake in China Now Under Control

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--After only a couple weeks of disaster relief, 764 at-risk hydropower stations in the quake-hit areas of China are fully under control, according to the Ministry of Water Resources. So far, no secondary disasters from hydropower-station failures have occurred.

The quake occurred in western Sichuan province on May 12, causing damage to 764 hydropower stations in Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan and Yunnan provinces. Some of these stations are highly volatile. The quake-relief headquarters of the Ministry of Water Resources assigned nine working teams, along with local water resources and hydropower departments, to investigate the hydropower stations.

In Sichuan province, teams conducted site inspections on 464 damaged stations and carried out emergency measures for 85 stations at high risk. Hydropower stations under extreme risk, such as Xiaozhuang, Huanggongping and Fengmingqiao, were immediately shut down. To eliminate dangerous conditions, relief measures were proposed and arranged for the executive body of the Kuzhuba and Longwangtan hydropower stations. In Chongqing, the working team proposed and created reports to shut down 198 hydropower stations. In Gansu, 76 hydropower stations were inspected, and measures such as reducing reservoir levels were applied to 37 stations. In Shaanxi, a team inspected 26 damaged hydropower stations and began emergency repairs on those impacting to the safety of flood control.

Progress was also achieved in draining lakes created by quake-triggered landslides in the disaster area. On June 10, disaster relief was provided to one of the worst-hit areas in the quake, the Tangjiashan Lake, the largest lake on the Tongkou River, with storage capacity of up to 300 million cubic meters. The lake was drained to a safe level with the assistance of a man-made spillway. The warning issued to the downstream Mianyang city area, where more than 250,000 people had been evacuated on the assumption that one-third of the lake breached the dam, has been downgraded from orange to yellow.

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