Earthquake Hits Ruili

By LAWI WENG

Nine people were injured when a 4.9 magnitude earthquake rocked the area around Ruili in Yunnan Province on the Burma-China border at 2:30 a.m. On Friday.

The Xinhua News Agency reported that two people had been seriously injured and another seven had been slightly injured.

According to sources in Ruili, local Chinese officials ordered schools closed as a safety measure.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Friday, a Burmese gem trader who is resident in Ruili, said, “People are very afraid. They are worried about their buildings collapsing.

“Luckily, my house was only a little damaged,” he said.

Frequent earthquakes in the China-Burma border region this year have raised concerns over the Burmese military government’s plans to build a series of mega-dams on the Irrawaddy River to generate electricity, said sources living in Laiza near the Chinese border.

Awng Wa, the chairman of the Kachin Development Network Group (KDNG), said people in Laiza are very afraid of earthquakes, because they often affect Kachin State.

In August, an earthquake measuring 5.3 hit Ruili, according to the US Geological Survey.

A joint inspection team from China and Burma are currently engaged in surveying the seven dam projects in Kachin State, which would generate an estimated 13,360 MW.
However, the region lies on an earthquake fault line that runs through China's Yunnan Province.

According to a KDNG report, “Damming the Irrawaddy,” one of the dams—the Myitsone dam—is located less than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the fault line where the Eurasia and India tectonic plates meet.

In May, a massive earthquake hit Sichuan Province in western China killing an estimated 70,000 people.