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Gorges project not trigger of Jiangxi quake: experts
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-12-03 11:38
WUHAN -- Chinese experts lashed out Friday at a report claiming that the
Three Gorges Project triggered last weekend's earthquake in east China's Jiangxi
Province, calling it "shee r speculation without any scientific foundation."
"Scientific studies show that the Three Gorges Project didn't trigger the
earthquake in Jiujiang City of Jiangxi Province," Dr. Qin Xiaojun, a
seismologist and spokesman for the Hubei Provincial Seismological Bureau
currently in Jiujiang for disaster appraisal, told Xinhua.
An earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale hit the area between
Jiujiang and Ruichang in Jiangxi at around 8:49 a.m. last Saturday, killing 13
people and destroying many houses in Jiujian gas well as in the eastern parts of
adjacent Hubei Province.
After the quake, rumors spread both at home and abroad that the quake was
triggered by the Three Gorges Project.
However, Hubei's Yichang City, the site of the Three Gorges Project, almost
did not feel the quake, experts said.
"The geological formation and background between Jiujiang and the Three
Gorges Project site are very different," Chen Deji, who is in charge of the
geological prospecting for the Three Gorges Project, told Xinhua.
"The two sites are located in two completely different quake belts, and
Jiujiang has been an epicenter before," he said.
In 1911, a 5-magnitude earthquake rocked the Jiujiang area.
The Three Gorges Project is 450 km away from the epicenter of this quake and
separated by another two geological formation units, according to Chen.
"The Three Gorges Project has no direct links with the geological plate of
the Jiuajing area," he said.
Gan Jiasi, director of the Monitoring and Forecast Center with the Hubei
Provincial Seismological Bureau, said the Jiujiang earthquake was purely caused
by the formation of the Earth.
"The quake movements in the Jiujiang area will soon diminish," he said.
Launched in 1993, the Three Gorges Project, including a 185-meter-high dam
and 26 generators on both banks of the Yangtze, is being built in three phases
on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, China's longest.
China has set up a complete and advanced forecast network for earthquake
around the area of the reservoir for the Three Gorges Project.
"So far, the operation of the reservoir in the Three Gorges Project has been
very stable," Gan said.
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