6 June 2008
Tangjiashan – here we go…
Posted by Dave Petley
Xinhua has reported in the last 20 minutes that:
“Water level of China’s main quake lake Tangjiashan climbed to the critical point of 740 meters on a sluice channel at 0:00 a.m. Saturday, but the long-awaited drainage hasn’t started yet.”
Given that we know that it has been raining in the area this afternoon, over-topping must be about to start. Hold onto your hats…!
And can I just say good luck to everyone in the path. I hope to wake up tomorrow to hear that this hasn’t even made the news. If so, the Chinese authorities will have achieved the almost impossible.
Dave Petley is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. His blog provides commentary and analysis of landslide events occurring worldwide, including the landslides themselves, latest research, and conferences and meetings.
Bloomberg is following this re the Lanzhou-Chengdu-Chongqing pipeline China’s longest fuel pipeline is at risk of damage from an earthquake lake that’s threatening to burst its banks, said the parent of operator PetroChina Co.http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid;=aBcm.ENGO8fw&refer;=asia
More recent news (translated from Chinese to English)on Tangjiashan lake and earthquake in Sichuan:http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.sohu.com%2Fs2008%2F2551%2Fs256802552%2F&hl;=en&ie;=UTF8&sl;=zh-CN&tl;=en
MIANYANG, Sichuan Province, June 7 (Xinhua) — Water level of China’s main quake lake Tangjiashan topped the lowest point of 740meters by 0.04 meters on a sluice channel at 0:45 a.m. Saturday, but the long-awaited drainage hasn’t started yet.
more from the same Xinhua link:MIANYANG, Sichuan Province, June 7 (Xinhua) — Water level of China’s main quake lake Tangjiashan topped the lowest point of 740meters by 0.09 meters on a sluice channel at 1:45 a.m. Saturday, but it was prevented from overflowing by a temporary dam added to protect workers on emergency construction downstream. More than 100 armed police were airlifted to Tangjiashan to broaden and deepen the sluice channel on Friday afternoon, said an expert at local commanding center on early Saturday morning. The temporary dam was 0.6 meters high, said the expert.
updating to 4am:MIANYANG, Sichuan Province, June 7 (Xinhua) — Water level of China’s main quake lake Tangjiashan topped the lowest point of 740meters by 0.20 meters on a sluice channel at 4:00 a.m. Saturday, but it was prevented from overflowing by a temporary dam added to protect workers on emergency construction downstream. More than 100 armed police were airlifted to Tangjiashan to broaden and deepen the sluice channel on Friday afternoon, said an expert at local commanding center on early Saturday morning. The temporary dam was 0.6 meters high, said the expert. Local headquarters said rainfall was heavy at the lake, with an average of two millimeters per hour.http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/07/content_8323257.htm