China quake lake series#

Shallow, powerful earthquakes cause widespread damage. The May 12 quake at 7.9 was approaching the most powerful for a continental quake, one inside a continent and not on a tectonic plate boundary, and at 10 km (six miles) deep was very shallow. 'I would imagine they will have quite reasonably strong aftershocks for a couple of months and then earthquakes in that sequence will continue for years,' Pascale said. 'There is no way of predicting the duration of aftershocks, but aftershocks can go on for years and years and years,' said Adam Pascale from the Seismology Research Centre in Australia. Superstar help: Medical workers take photographs with Hong Kong actor Andy Lau at a temporary hospital set up at a sports stadium in the earthquake-hit area of Mianzhu Seismologists have recorded around 150 aftershocks above a magnitude of 4, with the highest a 6, and warn that a major aftershock of around 6.9 was still possible.

China quake lake series#

Since the May 12 disaster, a series of strong aftershocks have occured along the earthquake's 155-mile fault line, running south-west to north-east outside of Chengdu. 'I wanted to go to Tiananmen Square, to climb the Great Wall, and to watch the Olympic Games,' he said.Ĭhina's devastated Sichuan region can expect to be rocked by aftershocks for weeks and months, possibly years, but the power of the aftershocks, one destroyed some 420,000 houses, will gradually diminish, say seismologists. Song Liangwei, 9, had always dreamed of visiting Beijing, but not as a quake victim. Thousands of injured have been transferred to other provinces and the capital for treatment to ease the pressure on local hospitals. Rescue effort: Soldiers prepare to dig a water diversion channel to drain the Tangjiashan mountain 'quake lake' Given the topography of Sichuan, with the western mountain country giving way to plains around Mianyang, a major rush of water could spill downstream and possibly affect lower-lying areas of cities such as Mianyang, he said. When they fail, they tend to fail catastrophically,' he said of the quake dams. 'Once that process starts, it's virtually impossible to do anything to decrease the water. Once a breach occurred, there could be an accelerating process leading to a sudden rush of water downstream. 'These landslide dams pose a really significant risk in these mountain regions, and in these narrow valleys it doesn't take much material to create a complete blockage.' Helicopters shipping in equipment were unable to take off.Īlexander Densmore, a seismologist at Durham University in Britain, said any break in a quake lake would likely be sudden. New West End Company BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENTįlood threat: The aerial photo shows the working site of the Tangjiashan quake lake near Beichuan County in southwest China's Sichuan Province.