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News: Chinese geologists have warned that the under-construction Medog Hydropower Project is being built above the active Paizhen Fault, raising structural safety concerns.
About Medog Dam
- Medog Hydropower Project is a planned 60,000-MW run-of-the-river hydroelectric project on the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) River.
- Location: It is located in Medog County, Tibet, near the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo River and about 50 km from China’s border with Arunachal Pradesh.
- Key Features
- Scale: It is expected to become the world’s largest hydropower project.
- Capacity: It has a planned generation capacity of 60,000 MW and is expected to produce around 300 billion Kwh of electricity annually.
- Timeline: China approved the project in December 2024, construction began in July 2025, and commercial operations are targeted for 2033.
About Paizhen Fault
- The Paizhen Fault is an active geological fault located beneath the Medog dam site in the reservoir area on the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) River.
- Faults are fractures in earth’s crust where rocks on either side of the crack have slid past each other.
- Tectonic Origin: It was created by the ongoing collision between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.
- Active Since: It has remained highly active since the Pleistocene epoch, (Ice Age) and geological evidence shows that it continued to remain active into the Holocene epoch, with movement recorded as recently as 9,500 years ago.
- A magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck the Milin area of Tibet in 2017 near the northern end of the fault, confirming its continuing seismic activity.
- Concerns: It may weaken the foundation-bearing capacity of the area and increase the risk of earthquakes, landslides, slope collapses, and structural damage to the Medog Hydropower Project.
