China may have new threat from damaged N-facilities (Nuclear)
New Delih: The aftermath of China’s devastating earthquake on Tuesday saw makeshift refugee camps mushrooming in odd places, with Mianyang being one of them.
The industrial city plays home to China’s nuclear weapons industry and turned into a refugee camp as tens of thousands of residents camped on streets for the second night in a row. Thousands more stayed in the city’s stadium.
The city’s buildings were dark and deserted as the government posted guards to keep the people out, for fear of aftershocks. Powerful aftershocks, one to the tune of magnitude 6, was felt in Sichuan’s Chengdu, one of the cities worst hit by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake.
However, the refugees may not be safe even now, for the earthquake may have damaged the nuclear facilities in Mianyang.
French experts of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) told agencies on Tuesday that they could not rule out damage to the nuclear facilities in Daya Bay, Lingao, Qinshan and Tianwan, as a result of the earthquakes.
Though all nuclear reactors are located more than thousand kilmetres from the epicentre, other nuclear facilities - such as research reactors - are located in Sichuan, some even within 100 km of the epicentre.
“Given the sharp ground acceleration of 250 centimetres per second detected 70 kilometres from the epicentre, it is not possible at this stage to rule out damage to these facilities,” the institute said in a statement to agencies.
Mianyang’s surrounding areas have a reported death toll of 7,300 while 18,000 are still believe to be trapped under rubble.
More than 12,000 deaths have been reported in the Sichuan province alone.
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/china-may-have-new-threat-from-damaged-nfacilities/65247-2.html
World’s oldest irrigation system in China safe after quake
2008-05-14 15:23:53
BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) — The safety of the world’s oldest operating irrigation system was not compromised by Monday’s quake, though the system sustained minor damage, the Ministry of Water Resources said on Wednesday.
The quake caused cracks in the V-shaped dike of the Dujiangyan project, which is more than 2,000 years old, and there were collapses in a sluice control room and a standby power generator room, it said.
The city of Dujiangyan, near the epicenter in Wenchuan County, was one of the worst-hit regions in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake.
The ministry urged protection of the Zipingpu Reservoir between Dujiangyan and Wenchuan, and on the upper stream to Dujiangyan.
It said the irrigation system and Dujiangyan City “would be swamped” if major problems emerged at the dam at the reservoir.
The emergency response office of the Sichuan government said on Tuesday that cracks had appeared on the surface of the dam at Zipingpu and workshops collapsed, while all hydropower generators came to a halt.
The ministry set up a command center at Zipingpu to safely discharge the reservoir’s rising waters and guarantee that the damage posed no threat to Dujiangyan and the neighboring Chengdu Plain.
The Dujiangyan project, built in 256 BC, is more than 50 kilometers from the provincial capital of Chengdu and irrigates 666,000 hectares of land, including Chengdu.
Sichuan has other major water projects, including the south-to-north water diversion project and the Three Gorges Dam, both of which reported no impact from the quake