Aerial View of Zipingpu Dam
Posted on 05/14/2008 4:29:09 PM PDT by blam
Formosa was settled about 30,000 years ago by people who are genetically related to the Malay and Polynesian people.
Aside from the occasional Chinese adventurer or fisherman there was no real colonization of Formosa until the Dutch established one in 1624.
Southern Fujians expelled the Dutch in 1662 and Tiawan fell under the control of Ming dynasty. (This is the first instance of Chinese control) Despite that there still was not significant interest in the island. It was not until the Qing Dynasty and 1887 that Tiawan was changed from a prefecture to a province.
This did not last long and Tiawan was ceded to Japan in 1895 in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The Japanese controlled the island until the end of World War II in 1945 when the Republic of China led by Chiang Kai-shek restored Tiawan to China.
This only lasted 4 years though when the Communists took over the mainland and the ROC government along with 2 million free Chinese was forced to retreat to Tiawan.
So “at Chinese domain”? That's kind of an arrogant point of view if you ask me. I seems to me that they are their own entity completely separate from China. In fact it would almost be easier to argue that they are a Malaysian or Polynesian nation (or even Japanese for the matter).
But thanks for playing.
STRATOR Strategic forcasting, Inc.
Cracks in the Zipingpu dam, most likely caused by the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province, pose a threat to an area still reeling from the destruction caused by the earthquake. Another concern is the dam’s power station, which may be off line for months, if not longer, further reducing the electrical supply in a province already suffering shortages because of low water levels in area rivers and rising industrial demand.
Analysis
Some 2,000 Chinese troops were sent to the Zipingpu dam May 14 in an effort to repair cracks in the dam most likely caused by the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province. Meanwhile, damage at other, smaller dams in the region is still being assessed. The Zipingpu dam was completed in 2006, one of several built to develop China’s western frontier, and created by far the largest reservoir in the affected area. (The Three Gorges Dam in neighboring Hubei province reported no damage from the earthquake.) Engineers already have begun releasing water from the Zipingpu reservoir, which has a capacity of 1 billion cubic meters, in order to relieve pressure on the dam.
A dam break would inundate the town of Dujianyan (population 600,000), which lies five miles downstream of the dam and where rescue efforts are still under way following the earthquake. The city of Chengdu, with a population of 3.75 million, is about 40 miles downstream from Zipingpu and would likely have to deal with flooding as a result of a dam break. Sichuan province also is a major grain producing area for China — 9 percent of the country’s total grain harvest comes from the province. Not all of the grain fields lie in the floodplain, but the Min Jiang River is a major source of irrigation in the region and a wall of water could knock out dams and diversions further downstream that irrigate more than 7 million acres on the Sichuan plain. With food prices already on the rise, a flood in Sichuan would further strain rice and wheat production.
Assuming that a major disaster resulting from the earthquake can be avoided at the dam, the region still faces a long-term problem of energy shortages. The hydroelectric power station inside the Zipingpu dam suffered major damage as well; walls reportedly collapsed and part of the station was said to have slid into the Min Jiang. The earthquake also shut down coal mines, if only temporarily, while they undergo safety inspections. The Zipingpu dam alone produces 3.4 billion Kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year in a region that produces a total of 91.75 billion kWh annually – so, 3.7 percent of Sichuan’s electricity output is gone.
This has occurred in a region already suffering from electricity shortages because of low water levels in area rivers and rising industrial demand. Sichuan province is a significant steel and aluminum producer and supplies the rest of China with reinforcing bar (“rebar”), which is used in concrete construction. Additionally, Chengdu is home to many textile plants and electronics factories. Even production facilities not damaged by the earthquake are feeling a pinch in power supplies that will hurt production levels and have a broad impact throughout China."
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God willing these 2,000 troops are from their corp of engineers and can do something to shore it up. In the mean time I hope they are evacuating as many people as they can and increasing the outflow of the dam to releive the pressure.
I truly feel for all the suffering being experienced in China from this earthquake. I also feel for the much greater suffering in China that is due to their murderous tyrannical government. I'm not going to tolerate a defense of that government and finger pointing at the U.S. here on FR as long as I'm a FReeper.
sw
No, it was before the earthquake that a few FReepers were not so nice. And he was not defending his government, believe me.
Which has nothing to do with my conversation with adcycn. I reject his complaints as whining.
I hope your wrong too. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have the same take on it.
I read somewhere today there are now 5 million homeless. Where will they go? Uncollapsed buildings?
Problem in China quake aftermath: how to house countless numbers left homeless
15-05-2008 - 11:15
Li Ande ran a convenience shop as a solidly middle-class citizen in this quiet tourist town, until the earthquake pulverized that and his home. Two days on, he's squatting under a tarp with seven members of his extended family.
"We've got no choice. Our house is gone," Li said, sitting under the plastic sheet tied to a tree with an umbrella propped up nearby for added shelter. Shocked, he said he's waiting, hoping "the government can do something for us."
While Beijing mounts a military mobilization to rescue people trapped under rubble since Monday's massive quake, the struggle to find food, water and shelter goes on for the survivors.
At least tens of thousands _ and perhaps many more _ are homeless and much of the disaster zone is teeming with refugees, cramming into sports arenas, government tent camps or rickety makeshift shelters of plastic sheeting.
Dujiangyan, known for charming tea shops along the Min River, is a mess. Aside from the debris of ruined buildings, orange peels, instant noodle cups and dog droppings litter the ground. Parks and any open ground are crammed with tents. Toilets are rare.
The government's response to the enormous challenge has been uneven so far: Thousands were staying at a sports arena in Mianyang city, bused there from devastated towns. Some were living in relief tents pitched in tidy rows. But many were forced to fend for themselves.
"I feel lucky," said 44-year-old Zhang Mingfu, who had built a wood and plastic shelter with a straw floor along a road in An Xian, where about 30 family members were staying after fleeing from down a valley whose towns were obliterated. "It's the people in the mountains that we are worrying about; they are our relatives."
For now, stoicism such as Zhang's seems to prevail. Many survivors blamed the situation on forces of nature and shrugged off questions with a simple "What can you do?" But there were grumbles of discontent that seemed likely to grow if conditions did not improve.
"There's no way that we would have to be here for one month," said Tang Yiren, a 66-year-old restaurant security guard who was staying under a red, white and blue tarp in a Dujiangyan park with about 10 co-workers.
Tang said he hoped to return home in three or four days. But his rented apartment was damaged in the quake, its walls cracked.
There has been no official tally of those who cannot return to their homes. The group includes not only those whose homes were destroyed but also people who are afraid to go indoors and others who have been ordered into the streets by authorities for fear that aftershocks will bring standing buildings down.
But the number could easily be in the hundreds of thousands. The Civil Affairs Ministry has said a half-million houses collapsed. In Ya'an, a city of 1.5 million, 16 people died but 40,000 were left homeless, state media reported, citing the state disaster relief headquarters.
About 100 families were staying at a tent camp in one Dujiangyan park. Relief workers provided food: crackers, instant noodles and simple boxed meals. Dinner on Wednesday was plain noodles topped with bean sprouts. One man had constructed a makeshift stove with bricks and stir-fried a big mound of fatty pork in a wok.
To pass the time, people chatted and played Chinese checkers. The monotony broke when rescuers discovered bodies from a collapsed building 20 yards (meters) away from the park.
"The crematorium trucks were here, they were taking the bodies," two female colleagues of Tang, the security guard, exclaimed, jumping up and scurrying away.
A few were trying to find their own housing solutions. At another camp, Yan Liting and her daughter sipped bowls of free rice porridge while helping relatives move their belongings to her undamaged apartment.
"They lost their families and their homes were destroyed," said Yan, sitting on a bundle of clothing wrapped in cloth. "They've been sleeping in makeshift shelters."
Others were simply heading out of town, including Fang Bohe and his wife, seeking a ride to the airport in the provincial capital of Chengdu.
"We'll see about coming back sometime," he said. "Until then, we'll stay with my son in Shanghai."
___ Associated Press writer William Foreman contributed to this report.
Thanks for posting the pics of the damaged dam.
In the crack picture... does it not look like a section of the dam is missing?
I posted pictures of the undamaged dam and I swear in the picture with the cracks in the dam shows a section of the dam missing. It is the area closest to the camera lens on the left of the picture.
You thoughts?
you = your
In the lower photo, you can see by the shadow that on the far left of the dam, there is a short vertical wall on dry land, which I take to be the one in the close-up above.
????
I agree that we both have the same location.
Lets say the second picture in 267 is set up directly North - East - West - South
The damage then in the photo is on the West side and photographer was standing on top of the dam looking west when he took the pictures. I see no missing sections in second picture like the what is in the first picture.
It appears a section of the dam crumbled (east of the cracks that are near the west shore wall)
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