Authors: Amit Ranjan and Genevieve Donnellon-May
The late March earthquake in Myanmar didn’t just rattle the earth—it laid bare the brittle backbone of Asia’s dam-driven progress.
As the region races to slake its thirst for water and energy, dams loom as development’s linchpins, taming rivers for hydropower and irrigation. Yet, when shoddily built or perched in seismic fault lines, these titans of engineering can flip from saviors to scourges—a vulnerability seismic zones and climate-fueled storms throw into stark relief. Myanmar, with nearly 200 large dams, teeters on this edge, a microcosm of Asia’s high-stakes gamble. Globally, the World Register of Dams counts 36,000 large dams; 300 have faltered, some even nudging fault lines into quiet tremors.
The wreckage tells the tale. In 2018, Laos’ Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Dam buckled under a tropical storm, drowning at least 40 lives and uprooting thousands in a muddy deluge. In recent years, the 2018 collapse of the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Dam in Laos, unleashed by a tropical storm’s deluge, killed at least 40 people and displaced thousands. In October 2023, the Chungthang Dam in the Indian state of Sikkim crumbled, leading to a flash flood upstream of the Teesta River, resulting in more than 70 deaths and property damage.
Seismic risks cut deeper: after a massive earthquake in Nepal in 2015, almost a fifth of the country was shuttered for over a year. After an earthquake in Tibet in January this year, the Chinese authorities detected problems, including cracks, in five out of 14 hydropower dams in the region. Of the five, three dams were emptied. In Tingri, the epicenter of the earthquake, the walls of one dam tilted, prompting the evacuation of about 1,500 people from six villages downstream.
Despite the risks, there is no pause in building dams in seismically active areas. China’s planned enormous US$139 billion hydropower project amplifies this anxiety. The project is expected to generate 60 gigawatts annually—almost thrice the capacity of the Three Gorges Dam—and help China meet its energy transition goals. Perilously close to the Sino-Indian border, the area is in a high seismic, earthquake-prone zone. The Himalayas, a hotbed of tectonic unrest, already experienced a 7.7 earthquake in Tibet in January this year, a sharp reminder of the region’s volatility. As projects built in this region are vulnerable to flash flooding and landslides, even a minor mishap at Medog could unleash devastation, not just in Tibet but downstream in India, where landslides and floods could compound the toll.
Like other parts of the world, hydropower dams are considered linchpins of progress in Myanmar. Hydropower fuels 54% of the nation’s electricity generation as of 2020, tapping the mighty Irrawaddy, Salween, Chindwin, and Sittaung rivers. Key installations like the Yeywa Dam (790 MW) and Shweli I Dam (600 MW) exemplify this reliance. The country’s hydropower potential is estimated at more than 100,000 megawatts (MW) in its river systems. According to the World Bank, Myanmar’s power system relies heavily on hydropower plants. In particular, the national grid relies on electricity supply from Yeywa hydropower plant (790 MW) and Shweli (400 MW allocated for Myanmar), the most consistently generating electricity. This energy landscape underscores dams’ critical role in electricity, yet their benefits come with a steep price—social upheaval, environmental harm, and heightened disaster risk.
One of the most important and controversial hydropower projects in Myanmar was the US $ 3.6 billion Myitsone Dam, located in the conflict-prone region, which faced intense opposition due to environmental degradation concerns and was criticized for displacing local communities. It was finally suspended in 2011 following public outcry. In 2024, Myanmar’s military junta, after suffering a string of military setbacks in Kachin State, planned to revive the China-backed project. This project is situated about 100 kilometers from Sagaing. Not only the military, but also Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), as reported, has been helping China to dam the Salween River despite opposition from local communities and civil society.
Currently, there is no report of the earthquake’s impact on the dams in Myanmar. Nonetheless, the Red Cross in Myanmar issued a statement warning that the dams on the Irrawaddy River may have been damaged and could break. Marie Manrique, program coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross, said to reporters in Geneva, via video link from Yangon, that “We currently have concerns for large-scale dams that people are watching to see the conditions of them… The bridge that connects Mandalay to Sagaing has collapsed—this will cause logistical issues. Sagaing has the largest number of internally displaced people in the countr”y.
Conclusion
Asia’s dam builders must heed these warnings. Comprehensive risk assessments—factoring in seismic threats, climate extremes, and social impacts—are non-negotiable. As Asia builds, it must weigh progress against peril, ensuring these giants stand firm when the ground shakes. The rumblings in Myanmar are a call to action; ignoring them courts a reckoning too costly to bear.
Notwithstanding, the governments will not stop planning for dams. Hence, it is better to take measures to reduce the disaster’s impact , as mentioned in a position paper on dam safety and earthquakes, focusing on design and preventing the uncontrolled rapid release of water from a storage dam under full reservoir conditions concerning expected seismic conditions.
