Do reservoirs cause earthquakes?
After the Wenchuan earthquakes there was a fierce debate about the role of the dam. Some people said the fact that the dam withstood the earthquake was an amazing feat. The other said it was nature’s warning to a reckless mankind, and that the Zipingpu reservoir may have even caused the earthquake. The debate centres on the issue of whether or not reservoirs can cause earthquakes. One of Li’s articles, written before the earthquake, said that since the dam was situated at the meeting point of three active faults, the weight of the water could trigger an earthquake. Fan Xiaori, the head engineer at the Sichuan Bureau of Geological Exploration’s surveying team, wrote in China National Geographic that the possibility of the reservoir triggering the earthquake could not be ignored. Fan lists seven factors that indicate a reservoir might trigger an earthquake: a dam higher than 100 metres with a reservoir of more than 1 billion cubic metres; active fault lines in the area; a reservoir lying
