The Luang Prabang Hydro-Dam on an Earthquake in Northern Laos and the Risk of a Series of Dam Breakdowns
Expert geologists have often pointed to the danger of earthquakes happening in the region where the main stream Xayaburi Dam was located. This region in Northern Laos is known to be geologically unstable.
Professor Punya Charusiri PhD of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok has observed: “The Xayaburi dam poses a potential danger because there are active faults close to the dam site.” He went on say: “There was a 30 per cent chance of a medium-sized earthquake hitting the dam site in the next 30 years, and a 10 per cent chance of a powerful earthquake of up to magnitude 7. He said: “If the fault at the dam site becomes active … there is no chance for seismic engineering to take care of that.”(3)
He also emphasized: “construction should ‘never have started’ at such a site without further research into its seismic risk, although the dam’s builders say it already complies with all earthquake safety rules.”
Doctor Punya warned that a series of earthquakes has been recorded in the vicinity of the Xayaburi Dam during recent years. In 2011, 2 earthquakes of 5.4 và 4.6 took place only 48 km from the Xayaburi Dam. In the following month, another quake of 3.9 was registered 60 km away. Previous to that, in 2007, a quake of 6.3 shook the Xayaburi area.
