Impacted dams getting repaired

This Sept. 14, 2007 picture released by GeoEye Satellite Image shows the Zipingpu Dam, upriver from the town of Dujiangyan, Sichuan, China. [Agencies]

Reservoir dams around the epicenter were impacted and damaged, and troops and professionals scrambled Wednesday to plug cracks and open sluices to prevent flooding of already devastated communities.

The National Development Reform Commission, the top economic planning body, said the earthquake had damaged 391 dams. It said two of the dams were large ones, 28 were medium-sized and the rest were small ones.

More than 2,000 troops were sent to work on the Zipingpu dam, which lies on about 6 miles up the Minjiang river from the badly damaged city of Dujiangyan.

The Ministry of Water Resources has urged for protection of the Zipingpu reservoir, saying Dujiangyan would be "swamped" if major problems emerged at the dam. The ministry had set up an emergency command center at the dam "to discharge the reservoir's rising waters and guarantee that the damage posed no threat to residents in Dujiangyan and the neighboring Chengdu Plain," which is densely populated.

from Chinadaily