On 12 May 2008 an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 hit the eastern region of Sichuan Province in China. It killed 70,000 people, made 5 million people homeless, blocked rivers, and put more than 300 dams at risk, threatening yet more death and damage from flooding.rnThe quake was felt as far away as India, Taiwan and Mongolia. It was caused by movement of the fault that lies between the high plateau of Tibet and the crust beneath the Sichuan basin and south-east China. Seismology tells us that earthquakes occur when the tectonic stresses that accumulate along faults reach a critical point and a sudden release occurs. There can always be speculation about what triggers an individual earthquake, however. Natural inevitability is one thing, but what if the trigger is pulled by mankind?rnThat question is now being asked about the Sichuan earthquake. A suggestion recently made by seismologists is that Sichuan's newest dam, completed in 2006, might be to blame. This is the Zipingku dam on the Min river near Dujiangyan.
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