Posted on 05/26/2008 3:38:19 PM PDT by rawhide
Landslides caused by the Sichuan earthquake have blocked rivers and formed new, possibly unstable, lakes.
Satellite images taken by the Taiwan's National Space Organisation (NSPO) show one such lake forming in Beichuan County, one of the areas worst hit by the quake.
Wow. Cool. It got much bigger from the 14th of May to the 19th.
This ain’t gonna be good.
It could be another huge catastrophe if/when whatever landslide material is plugging the water to form the lake suddenly breaks open from erosion. Boom, instant humungous flash flood downstream....
Whoever owned that house / farm is gonna be pi$$ed.
If it was a farm...think of all the great soil it will have after the landslide dam bursts.....
Lemons=lemonade
I’ll just bet the Chicoms aren’t any too pleased that it’s a Taiwanese satellite that’s monitoring this development.
China’s building codes are improving but many of these old dams and bridges were probably built years ago. If one of these dams burst ya better have your runnin’ shoes on.
Taiwanese funding has fueled a large chunk of Chinese development. Taiwan probably owns half of this.
Depends on what is in the landslide. If they have a lot of aggregate and rock, the landslide dam might survive for awhile.
Most landslide dams fail when they over-top; because they just happen and aren’t designed, they’re usually lacking some manner of spillway.
Any way you look at this job in China, tho, it ain’t good. Their river canyons are usually steep and narrow, which means that if the dam does fail, you’ll see some high water velocities going downstream.
Those poor bastards.
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