How do you say "dam(n) it" in Chinese ... and in Nepali too?

In case you forgot this post from just about a month ago, I quoted at length from an op-ed in which the author expressed serious concerns over China's dam building frenzy.  The author's solution was an easy and simple one:

The solution to these complex problems is simple: Since these enormous projects are state-run and state-financed, China’s leaders can cancel them at will.

That was a month back.

And then something big happened a week ago. So big it measured a 7.9 on the Richter Scale. Yes, the earthquake in Nepal.

In addition to the thousands dead, thousands missing, and the destruction to property, the quake rocked the dam world too.

Two workers at the Rasuwagadhi Hydropower station were killed and several injured in the quake, according to a statement released by the plant’s operator China Three Gorges Co.

And:

Rasuwagadhi, about 67.5 km from the quake epicentre, is one of three dams in Nepal under construction by Three Gorges Corp, according to the company’s website.

The New Yorker has a lot more analysis to offer.

Other deadly earthquakes will almost certainly strike the region, and the damage at Rasuwagadhi raises the question of whether a future quake in the Himalayas might precipitate a dam collapse that could send thousands of tons of water and rubble crashing downstream, piling horror upon catastrophe. The likelihood of such an event is growing because, simply put, more and more dams are being built in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones. More than four hundred dams are planned or are under construction in steep Himalayan valleys in China, India, Pakistan, and Bhutan, in one of the biggest waves of dam construction the world has ever seen.

More than four hundred dams?  In an earthquake area?  Where access even during the good days is not easy?  

Nepal, which has an abundance of as-yet-undammed rivers, a chronic shortage of energy (nineteen-hour blackouts are routine across the country), no spare cash, and little engineering expertise, is an obvious target for these regional investors. But then, there are the earthquakes. The Himalayas are the world’s highest and youngest mountains, the product of a slow-motion collision, fifty million years ago, between India—then an island—and the Eurasian landmass that forced what became the spectacular mountains upwards. India still pushes several inches northward a year, and stresses on the mountain region’s multiple fault lines regularly result in severe earthquakes that send avalanches crashing into steep river valleys, carrying away precarious roads, bridges, and other infrastructure.

What could possibly go wrong, right?  Oh wait, in addition to all these natural hazards, we humans add more to the stress.  The geologic stress, that is:

Geologists argue that the risks of building dams in earthquake zones go well beyond an earthquake-induced collapse. Earthquakes trigger landslides that can block rivers or change their course, which would also impact the operation of a hydrodam. But the most fiercely debated risk, since the 7.9-magnitude Sichuan earthquake in 2008, which killed seventy thousand people and left nearly twenty thousand missing, is that of “reservoir-induced seismicity”—the theory that the weight of water behind a dam, coupled with the seeping of water into fissures in rocks below, can produce shearing stress strong enough to worsen, or trigger, an earthquake. The Zipingpu dam, a five-hundred-and-eleven-foot-high structure on the Min River and the largest dam in Sichuan Province, was implicated in the 2008 earthquake.

What's the bottom-line then?

Saturday’s quake demonstrated how vulnerable infrastructure projects remain in the unsettled Himalayas.

If only we thought about economic development that is not completely at the expense of nature, and if only invested in sustainable development.  But, there are bombs to build, missiles to launch, ...

As for Nepal and the rest of the world:

This earthquake will remain in the global conscience only until it disappears from the broader news agenda. Sooner rather than later, donor efforts will turn to the next disaster. Once interest fades, Nepal will return to the grim realities of everyday life, facing unsafe and underinvested infrastructure, political stalemate, inefficient and dysfunctional institutions, corruption, and ineffective policy. Ideally, this time would be different.

Nope, I am sure by now the world has turned to the latest news: another product of a royal fuck!

A river runs wild. Make that two. How do you say "dam(n) it" in Chinese?

This is a post that will find fault with the Chinese government, criticize the uber-prioritization of economic growth, and favor the natural environment.  A holy trifecta of a bait for this guy;)

A wild and crazy duo; no, not that kind.
Wild and crazy rivers, that is. 

Two of the continent’s wildest rivers have their sources in Tibet: the Salween and the Brahmaputra.

Are you thinking what I am thinking?  Exactly!
The Salween?
Wikipedia notes that it is one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the world, at 1,749 miles.  And its name in Chinese translates to "the angry river."  Looks like the Brahmaputra is a tame one compared to the Salween!

Notice the source for these two?  Tibet.  Uh oh!

The occupied Tibet + rivers with untapped potential + need for energy + communist capitalism = yes, that's where that op-ed is going.

Though they are under threat from retreating glaciers, a more immediate concern is Chinese engineering plans. A cascade of five large dams is planned for both the Salween, which now flows freely, and the Brahmaputra, where one dam is already operational.

Now, keep in mind that China's voracious appetite for energy means that it already "has more than 26,000 large dams, more than the rest of the world combined."  More than the rest of the world combined.  Re-read that and take a deep breath.  We've just begun!  What are the issues here?

• Damming and diverting waters with impacts on the ecosystem
• Damming and diverting waters affecting countries downstream
• No benefit to the people of Tibet--energy exported to the east
• Local Tibetans displaced and the “ecological refugees” are shunted into ghettos."

I have merely summarized the key points.  The details in the op-ed are not pretty.

So, can anything be done at all?

The solution to these complex problems is simple: Since these enormous projects are state-run and state-financed, China’s leaders can cancel them at will.

Fat chance of that ever happening!

I was confident that commentators in India would have written in plenty in this context.  Of the few that I scanned through, I liked this take, which ends thus:

In a letter dated 4 December 1962, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to Bertrand Russell: “We do not want to do something which will endanger our planet. I do think, however, that there will be a greater danger of that kind if we surrender to the Chinese and they feel that the policy they have pursued brings them rich dividends”.
More than 50 years later, it is fervently to be hoped that better sense will prevail in China, and the lives of millions of people of the subcontinent will not be endangered by killing the river Brahmaputra. 

I tell ya, we better get on to that energiewende fast.