A file picture taken Aug. 19, 2018, showing damage in Sanamxay district of Attapeu province in southern Laos, about a month after the breach of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy dam that left 71 dead and thousands displaced. Credit: RFA.
An Attapeu province authorities confirmed that the PNPC launched water Friday.
” They, the business, are working on some repair work to the saddle dam. The water discharge will last for a week. The river water level is increasing about a meter,” the official stated.
The official stated that PNPC called provincial and local authorities to notify residents who live close to the Xe Pian River to relocate to greater ground.
An employee of the PNPC told RFA that the business was not prepared to explain why the dam released water unexpectedly.
” We cant state anything much today. Were in the procedure of examining. The management group might or may not reveal info,” the PNPC worker stated.
The problem could be related to a breakdown in a flood gate, Brian Eyler, co-lead of the Mekong Dam Monitor job run by the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, informed RFA. Satellite imagery suggests eviction has been spilling water considering that March 25 through a minimum of March 27, he stated.
” The flow rate from the flood gate does not appear to position an instant danger to downstream communities, however the reservoir is losing water due to the equipment breakdown. Up until eviction is closed, the dam company will incur substantial earnings losses to future and current hydropower production,” Eyler stated.
” This saddle dam was built to replace the saddle dam that burst in 2018. Usually saddle dams, which are utilized to support and strengthen the side of a reservoir, do not have flood gates, however I presume the dam operator set up a flood gate in the rebuilt saddle dam to mitigate threat if conditions similar to the 2018 dam burst were to appear to happen once again,” he stated.
According to records from RFAs Lao Service, the brand-new saddle dam D was completed in October 2019 and is located one kilometer north of the old one.
The Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Dam can now produce 410 MW of electrical power, 90 percent of which is sold to business in Thailand.
The $1 billion dam was established by South Koreas SK Engineering and Construction and Korea Western Power, Thailands Ratch Group and the Lao power state enterprise, Electricite du Laos.
Laos has actually staked its future on power generation in a controversial quote to end up being the “Battery of Southeast Asia,” exporting electrical power from more than 50 large and small-scale dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries.
Though the Lao government sees power generation as a method to enhance the nations economy, the projects have dealt with criticism because of their ecological impact, displacement of villagers and questionable arrangements.
Translated by Max Avary. Composed in English by Eugene Whong.
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The business responsible for Laos worst ever dam collapse more than three years ago announced recently that its rebuilt dam would begin launching water, frightening downstream homeowners, including survivors of the disaster.
On the night of July 23, 2018, billions of cubic feet of water from a tributary of the Mekong River poured over a collapsed saddle dam at the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower task following heavy rains in Laos Champassak province.
The disaster erased all or part of 19 towns, leaving 71 individuals dead and displacing 14,440.
Because then, a brand-new saddle dam has been completed, and some of the survivors have actually kicked back into areas downstream.
Much of the returned homeowners were shaken on Friday by PNPCs announcement that it would start releasing water the next day, forcing a lot of them to temporarily uproot their lives when again to get to higher ground.
” Oh, we were panicking and we were so worried that the dam would collapse again. They need tove warned us at least one week earlier,” a citizen of Tam Mayor Village, one of 4 villages downstream in Sanamxay district, home to many survivors of the 2018 disaster, informed RFAs Lao Service.
” Many individuals didnt understand anything about the warning because they werent in the house. The majority of them were at farms or rice fields,” said the source, who requested privacy for security reasons.
” As soon as we received the warning, we moved right away to the hills nearby,” another survivor told RFA
A 3rd downstream resident told RFA that they did not get the caution from the PNPC however did get a caution from the provincial authorities.
” They, the company, are working on some repair work to the saddle dam. The water discharge will last for a week. The river water level is increasing about a meter,” the official said.
” We cant state anything much right now. The management group might or might not reveal details,” the PNPC worker stated.
