Chinese Soldiers Rush to Bolster Weakened Dams
Edward Wong reports in the New York Times:
China mobilized 30,000 additional soldiers to the earthquake-shattered expanses of the nation’s southwestern regions on Wednesday — not just to help victims, but also to shore up weakened dams and other elements of the infrastructure whose failure could compound the disaster.
The remains of collapsed buildings in Beichuan County, Sichuan Province, in southwestern China on Tuesday, a day after a powerful earthquake struck. At least 5,000 are dead in the county. More Photos »
Experts said that these dams were built around the well-recognized Longmen Shan fault. They warned that such dams might have sustained damage that could cause them to fail even weeks later.
Much depends on efforts to reduce the menacing pressure of water behind the dam walls. Two thousand soldiers were sent to a dam just three miles upriver from the devastated town of Dujiangyan, northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu, to inspect a structure that has shown some cracks and is “in great danger,” according to state-controlled China National Radio.
