Nu river. Retrieved from: www.asianews.com
“The Nu River valley in Yunnan province – known as China’s Grand Canyon – sits at the epicentre of China’s seismic zone. This dramatic landscape is also wracked by torrential rains that kill dozens of people each year. But in spite of the constant threat of landslides, life teems here. Unlike America’s Grand Canyon, the Nu valley is dotted with hundreds of towns and villages, many of which perch precariously on the mountainside.
However, the valley’s fragile resilience is hanging in the balance, threatened by the recently revived proposal to build a 13-dam cascade along the main body of the Nu River, one of three waterways that form the famed Three Parallel Rivers world heritage site and the heart of China’s cultural and biological diversity. If it goes ahead, the cascade would displace 50,000 people and ruin one of China’s most important biodiversity hotspots.
Two senior Chinese geologists, Sun Wenpeng and Xu Daoyi, have also raised serious concerns about the earthquake risks associated with building such an ambitious hydropower scheme on a major structural fault.”
Read more: China Dialogue
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