03.06.2004 11:09:00 GMT 30,000 Chinese reservoirs facing serious safety problems
Shanghai. (Interfax-China) - The Minister of Water Resources, Wang Shucheng, speaking at a recent teleconference, has questioned the ability of many of China's reservoirs to protect against flooding, and stated that as many as 30,000 - 36% of the country's total - were facing a number of serious problems as a consequence of mismanagement, technological backwardness and natural decay.
The reservoirs facing most of the problems are small-scale ones, and were generally built from the 1950s to the 1970s, Wang Shucheng noted. They all suffer from the social, economic and technological limitations of the time, according to a report in Zhongguo Xinwen She (China News Service).
The ability of the dams at the reservoirs to protect against flooding is limited, Wang complained, and erosion has damaged the spillways and the sluice gates. Furthermore, there are serious termite infestations at many of the reservoirs.
He also noted that the anti-seismic standards were not high enough at the time of construction. There is always a risk of inducing earthquakes after the impoundment of a reservoir, as Interfax has previously reported.
In related news, experts responsible for monitoring seismicity at the Three Gorges Reservoir have revealed this week that the number of earthquakes in the region has actually risen since the reservoir was filled last June.
However, Wang Qiang, the vice-head of the Earthquake Monitoring Bureau at the Chongqing Municipality stressed that over the last twelve months, there have been no earthquakes capable of causing any damage to the Three Gorges Dam. The number of tremors exceeding 2 on the Richter Scale has actually fallen in the last year, and the dam been built to withstand a quake higher than 7, he added.
According to figures provided by the Ministry of Water Resources, a total of 3,484 dams have collapsed in the period from 1954 to 2003, a remarkable annual average of almost 70. Officials argue that China's ability to construct and maintain dams has actually improved, and the annual average in the 1990s fell to 18 from a peak of 204 in the 1970s.
