Provoking Nature
From being a marvel of engineering, a technological feat as yet unsurpassed in its magnitude and power, the massive Three Gorges Dam reservoir now represents a project that is producing more than its anticipated share of headaches for the Chinese government. Its bold plan to secure the reservoir at huge social displacement and immense cost did result in providing a large energy source to the energy-hungry giant.But the people who were originally displaced from their traditional familial farms and homes never did receive the compensation and the assistance to settle elsewhere that the government promised them. Those promises served as a demonstration to the international community that China respected human rights, that it could be counted on to do the right thing by its people.
Feasibility studies were done, and environmental studies as well to ensure that the Three Gorges Dam would be a success in harnessing power and making it available as required for a growing economy. There were not feasibility studies done on the practicality of removing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and having them settle elsewhere in the country. The government would take care of the details.
The details that have since emerged include concerns about the effects of earthquakes occurring near the site. And the suspicion that some of the earth's movements might be connected to the immense strain being placed upon the mantle of the crust as a result of the tremendous weight of that gigantic dam. Moreover, cracks in the dam have been in evidence for quite some time, a rather worrying concern.
In 2010 the reservoir reached its high-water mark, causing landslides - and accidents have risen 70%. "Due to the complexity and uncertainty of the problems, the pattern of geological disaster cannot be accurately predicted. It's difficult to know what's going on", admitted Liu Yuan, who operates the Land and Resources Ministry's Three Gorges Geological Disaster Prevention Office.
As though naming a government arm a 'geological disaster prevention office' could conceivably have any ameliorating effect on a geological upheaval that may occur, resulting in the collapse of the reservoir, flooding areas never meant to be inundated, causing untold deaths. This is a disaster years in the making.
While China celebrated its massive technological feat in building the dam, nature is now responding.
There were 46,000 nearby residents who were moved from relative proximity to the reservoir site. And the government is now considering that it will have to act to relocate another 100,000 area residents in anticipation of continuing rising water levels which have created increasing instability in lands adjacent the reservoir.
The unpredictable events leading from an unprecedented interference with the Earth's geological features can be fearsome.
Labels: China, Economy, Energy, Environment, Heritage, Human Fallibility, Misadventure, Nature
posted by Pieface @ Monday, April 23, 2012
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