Beth Walker
The Third Pole
April 28, 2015
Hundreds of workers left stranded after Chinese- backed dam destroyed in Nepal amid growing fears over risks of dam building in the Himalayas.
The authorities in China are working to rescue 250 workers trapped at a Chinese-backed dam in northern Nepal after Saturday’s earthquake, Bloomberg business reported.
Officials say the death toll from the 7.8-magnitude quake could reach 10,000 as rescue teams struggle to reach the worst affected areas north-west of Kathmandu that have been cut off by severe landslides.
Two workers at the 110 MW Rasuwagadhi Hydropower station were killed and several injured, according to a statement released by the plant’s operator China Three Gorges Corporation, the world’s largest hydro-electric company.
The dam suffered extensive damage, roads have been cut off and workers are running out of food and other supplies.
Two of Nepal’s largest hydroelectric facilities, 144-MW Kaligandaki power station and 22.1-MW Chilime hydropower plant, may have been affected according to news reports from the area. However, officials will not know the extent of damage, until they are able to conduct inspections.
The regional government of Tibet and the Chinese army are leading the rescue effort in Rasuwagadhi, about 67.5 kilometres from the quake epicentre. The dam is one of three in Nepal under construction by Three Gorges Corp.
This disaster follows fast after the Three Gorges Corporation got the green light from Nepal to build the US$1.6 billion 750 MW West Seti project earlier this month, the single biggest foreign investment in the Himalayan country.
One of the world’s poorest countries, Nepal has recently opened its hydropower sector to foreign investment to help ease chronic power shortages and grow an economy still emerging from a decade-long civil war.
Nepal has also recently signed deals with India to build 1,800 MW of hydropower —about triple the amount of electricity currently produced in the country.
Hundreds of large dams are planned or under construction across the wider Himalayan region in China, India, Pakistan and Bhutan. Countries have turned to hydropower as a supposedly green source of energy to meet bourgeoning demand in a region blighted by power shortages.
But experts have long warned of the danger against building large dams in the seismically unstable Himalayas, where the collapse of large infrastructure can magnify devastation in mountainous regions.
Dams were blamed for intensifying the destruction caused by the devastating landslide in the Himalayan state of Uttarkhand, northern India in 2013, and Japan’s Tohoku earthquake led to a series of dam failures in Fukishima.
Some geologists even warn building large dams can increase the risks of earthquakes. Most controversially Chinese scientists say the weight of reservoir behind the Zipingpu dam triggered the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which killed about 90,000 people.
