page_title: Myitsone Dam
section_title: Social impact
hierarchical_section_title: Myitsone Dam / Social impact
caption_attribution_description: English: New concrete road and electricity supply for Tang Hpre village after relocation.
context_page_description: The Myitsone Dam is a large dam and hydroelectric power development project which was planned to be built in Myanmar. The proposed construction site is at the confluence of the Mali and N’mai rivers and the source of the Irawaddy River in northern Burma. As of 2017 the project is suspended, but China has been lobbying to revive the dam.
  Had the dam been completed according to plans in 2017 it would have been the fifteenth largest hydroelectric power station in the world. The dam, planned to be 1,310 metres long and 139.6 metres high, was to be built by the Upstream Ayeyawady Confluence Basin Hydropower Company. The company is a joint venture between the China Power Investment Corporation, the Burmese Government's Ministry of Electric Power, and the Asia World Company. The dam was planned to have a generation capacity of 6,000 megawatts and to produce electricity primarily for export to Yunnan, China. CPI contended that China would not be the electricity's primary market and stated that Myanmar would have first claim on the electricity generated, with the remainder sold for export.
context_section_description: The dam is expected to flood 447 square kilometres (173 sq mi) including 47 villages near the construction site and about 11,800 local people would be relocated in the newly built resettlement villages. The activists in exile stated that the dam would submerge historical temples, churches, and cultural heritage sites important to Kachin identity and history and the natural heritage of the Kachin people in Myitsone area would be lost.
  In response, the government reported in the state-run newspaper, New Light of Myanmar, that relocated villages from the project area had been provided with all forms of aids including water, electric power, and buildings and that the government also helped in relocation of religious buildings. CPI reported a total expense of 4.1 billion kyats in compensation and US$25 million in resettlement funding. The government stated that the remote region would benefit greatly from the new roads and access to electricity.
  Local communities pointed out other issues such as the dam's location on earthquake-prone zone. They opposed the dam site because it is less than 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the major Sagaing fault line, posing a risk to basin inhabitants if an earthquake weakened the dam or caused landslides in the reservoir. If the Irrawaddy Myitsone Dam broke during an earthquake, it would endanger the lives of hundred of thousands of people downstream in Kachin State's largest city, Myikyina.
  In response, the government said that the dam would withstand an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale. In an interview with Xinhua News, Lu Qizhou, President of China Power Investment Corporation said that Myitsone Hydropower Station follows the standard of fortification intensity 9, two points above the intensity of Zipingbu Hydropower Station that withstood 2008 Sichuan earthquake of 8.0 Richter scale. On the other hand, Burmese scientists who carried out the environmental assessment recommended building two smaller dams farther upstream instead of building in an earthquake-prone zone.
caption: Tang Hpre village, after relocation, supplied with electricity and new concrete roads.
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