The deputy director on scientific work of Institute of water and environmental problems of the FEB RAS Alexey Makhinov, the participant of a research the reasons of the landslide and tsunami on the Bureya River in Khabarovsk Krai which created threat to work of the Bureya hydroelectric power station (see Kommersant of February 1), at a conference of the regional office of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) ... on February 20 presented the report "The Bureya landslide: reasons and consequences".
The total area of a landslide body in a surface part is 270 thousand sq.m.
Extent of the formed dam across the bed of the Bureya River reaches 800 m.
Width in the bottleneck is about 150 m, maximum reaches 620 m.
The volume of the descended breed is equal to 24.5 million cubic meters, including about 4.5 million cubic meters - a surface part ...
Alexey Makhinov recently returned from the scene and confirmed that the landslide was not due to an earthquake, but due to the movements of the rock with great speed within a few minutes...
... "It happened on December 11 at 14: 48 local time (07:48 GMT),- said the scientist.- The air temperature was minus 38 degrees. The thickness of the ice in the reservoir-20 cm...".
According to Mr. makhinov, the Institute continues to receive letters from citizens with all sorts of versions of the causes of the cataclysm: from the fall of a meteorite or a space rocket to the " spirally rotating ether in the loop of the ether rotator":
"About what the author of the message wanted to tell, I cannot understand. Perhaps, and he will not be able to explain. I do not take in attention of aliens and green any more a devourers of stones which allegedly dug a tunnel in the hill".
At the same time, Alexey Makhinov recognized, geological studying of the hill is not finished yet ...
... So, on the opposite (right) coast there is a hill which poses a threat too and "over time can roll down" ...
When the snow melts, the water level in the reservoir will rise to 8.5 m (262 m above sea level), which means that the village of Chekunda will be flooded...
Fragments of trees which are in water, can aggravate a situation and already now emerge. They can form a jam [an obstacle for a free wheeling of water] too. There are no ideas on clearing of possible blockages yet, except plans of the management of the Bureya hydroelectric power station by the forces of the employees to remove wood [trees in water] before the dam of the station.
Among other serious consequences of the cataclysm, Mr. Makhinov mentioned the violation or complete stop of navigation on the Bureya, calling it a "disaster" for the area with almost no roads...
Ernest Filippovsky, Khabarovsk; Tatyana Dyatel" [https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3890309?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop]
The comment.
(A) "Alexey Makhinov recently returned from the scene and confirmed that the landslide was not due to an earthquake, but due to the movement of the rock with great speed for a few minutes..." https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3890309?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop
"The huge mass of soil was quickly displaced down in a reservoir ..." [HTTPS://RG.RU/2019/02/21/REG-DFO/UCHENYJ-RASSKAZAL-O-PRICHINAH-I-POSLEDSTVIIAH-BUREJSKOGO-OPOLZNIA.HTML?UTM_SOURCE=YXNEWS&UTM_MEDIUM=DESKTOP]
Interestingly, what indicators (at least, approximately) "the huge speed" were? what indicators of "fast" "shift"? 1 km a second? 10000 km a second? 1000000 km a second?
(B) "Ice thickness in a reservoir - 20 cm ..." https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3890309?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop
"It was necessary to work hard [January, 2019]. We drilled in ... the thick (80 centimeters) ice 52 wells". https://rg.ru/2019/02/21/reg-dfo/uchenyj-rasskazal-o-prichinah-i-posledstviiah-burejskogo-opolznia.html?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop
Deputy Director for scientific work Of the Institute of water and environmental problems of the Feb RAS, doctor of geographical Sciences Alexey Makhinov told " RG " why it is necessary to relocate the inhabitants of Chekunda and how the mass of the soil settled in it will affect the work of the reservoir.
Alexey Nikolaevich,what happened in the valley of Bureya? Speculation of the type "missile, a meteorite, the explosion" still excite the Internet. Indicate a thermal anomaly, the destruction of forests around...
Alexei Makhinov: a huge mass of soil quickly shifted down into the reservoir 500 meters wide and blocked it completely, going to the other side. The landslide formed a giant 60-meter ice wave tsunami. It with incredible force struck the opposite shore, destroying of growing forest.
You can imagin, 300 hectares of good larches and birches were at the roots cut off!
Water went further up the valley of inflow - the river Sredny Sandar [Middle Sandar] and rose by three and a half kilometers, then returned back...
The meteorite was not, the rocket was not.
The thermal anomaly, certainly, was.
On December 11 in that area air temperature minus 38 degrees is recorded. But deeply under the chilled earth temperature did not fall below plus of five. When the landslide came down, the place of its separation was warm. This contrast was marked even from satellites. In three days the surface cooled down, and the anomaly disappeared ...
You were a part of "landing" of scientists and surveyors, in January, 2019 several days which were in details surveying the place of a landslide. Who financed an expedition how it took place what tasks faced you?
Alexey Makhinov: Among arrived to the place there were 11 employees of our institute, Institute of tectonics and geophysics..., Dalgidrometcentr, and the company "The Engineering Researches of DV". It was necessary to explain, what happened and to define consequences of this unusual phenomenon. The organization of a trip laid down on the regional government, but we spent means own, institute. Yes, there are not a lot of money - train tickets to station Elga and per diem in the amount of one hundred roubles. In Elge the staff of committee of the government of Khabarovsk Krai on civil protection met us, brought to Chekunda from where we on river ice went to work every day for the place of a landslide. To live on the bank of a reservoir in a tent it did not turn out - there were forty-degree frosts. However, the tent was - in it rescuers installed the heat gun, it was possible to drop in for several minutes to warm hands. Spent the night in the school gym. Here, in the dining room we were well and cheap fed with a breakfast and a dinner. The lunch with themselves was not taken - is on such frost it is impossible.
Rescuers brought a big thermos with tea. It very much helped.
Further it is important to exclude this site of the valley from vigorous economic activity.
It was necessary to work hard. We drilled in stuffed with logs thick (80 centimeters) ice 52 wells.
Examined the landslide body, saw where came a tsunami. Learned what species is soil mass. For science, there is still a lot of interesting, really wanted to stay longer. But those who invited us for these works, not science worried, and clarification of the reasons of the landslide, its sizes and what to do with it further.
Why it was necessary to carry out explosions in the place of landslide masses, without waiting for spring?
Alexey Makhinov: the body of the landslide formed a kind of dam...
... Some blocks (dikes) of these rocks in diameter reached 16 meters...
It turns out that next to the first landslide in any neighboring zone of the tectonic fault may well come second. Is there any way to protect the slope?
Alexey Makhinov: No, there are no such methods. It is impossible to strengthen the base of the slope, to punch wells, to pump concrete - it is useless. It is necessary to study the shores of the reservoir, but only in order to know: such a phenomenon can occur, it is necessary to be ready for it. And it is very important to exclude this part of the valley from active economic activity. It is impossible to build houses in these places, to develop recreation, to organize ship stops. And the rest should be remembered: landslide-not a nightmare, but a common natural phenomenon that often happens on our planet."[https://rg.ru/2019/02/21/reg-dfo/uchenyj-rasskazal-o-prichinah-i-posledstviiah-burejskogo-opolznia.html?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop]
Comment (note).
"Dikes are characterized as plate-like bodies bounded by vertical or steep walls and having a relatively small power significant length."[http://economic-definition.com/Nature/Gornaya_poroda_Rock__eto.html]
... Similar often meets on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. For example, a few years ago we worked in the Ulbansky gulf and -observed the same landslides there ... - Alexey Makhinov says.
They quite often occur in different parts of the world, but generally in high mountains - the Himalayas, the Alps, the Andes. In 1911 on Pamir the powerful landslide in rocky breeds which received the name Usolye came down.
This grandiose collapse happened in Southeast Tajikistan, having completely blocked the valley of the Murghab River (Amu-Darya's upper course) ....
Not so long ago (in 2007) on Kamchatka the landslide about 20 million cubes came down and partitioned off the river Geyzernuyu... ... in 2014 ... behind a dam the lake was formed ...
On Bureya - the similar case, only scale is wider: thickness of "body" about 100 meters, volume of the breed which slipped to the river made 24.5 million cubic meters.
Blockage extent on a crest of 740 meters, width - from 100 to 500.
Natural bomb
Incident in Khabarovsk Krai happened on December 11, and already 12 on the Internet data of space shooting from the American satellites appeared: like, in Russia on the Bureya River there was a huge landslide.
For certain our services also knew about it, but into a "broad masses" did not give news, the scientist considers.
In several days on the place of a landslide hunters appeared - at them sites are near, and it is time to check traps. And as the hunter went well equipped now, on "Snow-storms" it is simple to reach any ... place ...
They also told the first to experts about the event ...
Why trees on the big area were broken?
The scientist not only analysed a photo, but also not once took part in all helicopter flights.
Alexey Nikolaevich considers: there passed the wave of a tsunami up to 56 meters high (such figure was defined by devices).
The landslide squeezed out a big wave from a reservoir and directed it to slopes and to the valley of the river.
There was it instantly, and the rocky masses (under Archimedes's law) squeezed out all water.
And as the surface of a reservoir was covered with a twenty-centimetric ice layer, all this "was splashed out" on an opposite slope. Almost all trees are cut off by a wave as if the razor!
Landslides in the Far East the frequent phenomenon, - Makhinov assures. - In 1985 on Zeya descended such in six million cubic meters - fell down to the river near the village New Sazanka. That landslide was four times less Bureya and though it raised a river bed by 12 meters, much of anything is not affected. In Zee soils loose, sand, landslide washed away and carried away by water... -
On Bureya breeds [soils] are rocky, the role was played by the freezing of the dam - the reservoir was tightened by thickness of ice therefore it was necessary to punch explosions to start up water from above.
Repetition is possible
The main question which is asked scientists: whether there is still a threat to the village?
In the reservoir comes from the inflow of rivers about 18-20 cubic meters of water per second - says Makhinov.
- Yes, on cracks in a landslide dam its insignificant part leaves.
Above the dam water rises slowly, below (HPP-that works) resets about 800 cubic meters per second...
Natalya PLATOSHKINA (Наталья ПЛАТОШКИНА).
By the way
The village of Chekunda arose on the place of an old Evenki settlement on the Bureya River, between the Tuyun and Ingir Rivers flowing into it. In due time each old resident Chegdomyna respecting himself had in these parts a small hut for winter hunting, to all holiday going to a taiga, to put traps on a sable. An elk, a Manchurian deer, a musk deer, a sable, a wild deer, huge a taimen in small rivers with fantastic names - Tuyun, Ol, Niman ... Rare, amazing places!
Mentions of Chekunda are dated 1910 though the old monument at the cemetery of the village indicates burial of 1870.
Chekunda appeared even earlier, than the Sofia mine! There lived Russians, Yakuts, Tungus here. In 1910 in Chekunda there was a Nimansko-Bureinskoy transshipment terminal of the gold-mining company. Freights from Blagoveshchensk were hauled here in the summer on water, then thrown on the mines Sofiysk and Iyerokhan (the abandoned settlement - once was the mine - on the way to Sofiysk).
In 1927 the Verkhnebureinsky native region of the people of the Even (Tungus) is formed, and Chekunda becomes the district center. There were even a skinnery and collective farm "Red hunter". Then constructed the railroad, and Chekunda stood aside, and the center was transferred to Average Urgal, then to Chegdomyn.
Chekunda endured not one flood, old residents tell. In 1917 Bureya almost demolished the village, and in the late forties washed away also church. In 1961 - again a flood: by helicopter evacuated people, and transferred the village from the old place.
In the 70th years of the last century there was a site of a koopzveropromkhoz and a meteorological station, and in 1975 one more flood forced to transfer the settlement even above on a current (where was a point of geologists).
Floods were not any more, but in 2012 the fires which destroyed several houses came to the village.
Today in Chekunda there were generally elderly people, less school students and children every year. The club, mail, school, gradually collapsing houses.
There is a village on the high coast of fast Bureya, nearly 150 years Chekunda - whether "will hold on" to anniversary?""
(A) "There was it instantly ..." What approximate temporary parameters of the phenomenon: 1 second? 1 millisecond?
(B) "For certain our services also knew about it, but into a "broad masses" did not give news, the scientist considers".
"KHABAROVSK, on December 25. / TASS/. ... "The additional analysis of ten-minute images of KA of "Himawari-8" (the meteorological satellite) allowed to reveal in this area the thermal anomaly which arose on December 12 at 09:50 local time (02:50 Moscow time)", - it is said in the statement.
Processing and analysis of satellite imagery materials on the area of Bureyskaya HPP, as specified, carried out in connection with address by leaders of Federal State Budgetary Institution Dalnevostochnoye UGMS. Interest to the area is caused by information on decrease in inflow of water to the reservoir of Bureyskaya HPP, which is noted the last few days...
"The data of space monitoring were promptly transferred to the units of Roshydromet, EMERCOM of Russia, the administration of the presidential Plenipotentiary in the far Eastern Federal district, the government of Khabarovsk territory, RusHydro, the Amur water basin management," the report said ... " [https://tass.ru/ekonomika/6141539?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop]..." [https://tass.ru/ekonomika/6141539?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop]
... According to experts, washout of the new course in a blockage under the influence of the water proceeding through it will increase
MOSCOW, on February 20. / TASS/. ...
... "It is incorrect to speak about any possible decrease in power production of the Bureya hydroelectric power station now. According to specialists of institute of JSC Lengidroproyekt, washout of the the proran [channel] (the new course) ... under the influence of the water proceeding through it will increase. [According to experts of the Institute of JSC "Lengidroproekt", the erosion of the proran (new channel) in the dam under the influence of flowing water through it will increase.] As expected, this process will amplify during the spring and summer period of 2019 and especially - when passing rain floods", - told TASS in the press service of the company.
Added to RusHydro that the Bureya hydroelectric power station operates normally with the power production and a consumption of water characteristic of the winter period ...
Changes were made to news (on February 21 9:23 Moscow time) - the heading" is specified [https://tass.ru/ekonomika/6141539?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop]
2) An overlappings of the rivers. A dams. A meteorites. General problems of water and energy resources. Russia, world. History, news, forecasts.
The deputy head of Rosrybolovstvo Vasily Sokolov said that the Ukrainian side carries out "barbaric" dumping of water into the Black Sea, RIA Novosti tells.
As it is noted, it is about dumping of the water which is earlier coming from the Ukrainian territory to the Crimea.
"Now, from our point of view, water dumping, barbaric for ecology of the Black Sea is carried out" - Sokolov told.
He specified that this leads to changes in fauna and desalination." [https://www.gazeta.ru/business/news/2019/02/20/n_12661759.shtml]
"https://www.pravda.ru/science/1275778-azov/
Author Veronika Belotserkovskaya
It is updated: 23.09.2015 18:49 It is published: 23.09.2015 12:56
The Don River will turn into the swamp?
The problem of deficiency of drinking waters concerns not only the Rostov region. The contribution makes climate change (change of atmospheric circulation). In the Moscow and Voronezh regions there is deforestation, wildfires and plowing of floodplains in Don upper courses are observed.
The small rivers and streams are filled up with garbage, soil, dams are under construction. Experts pay attention that the fence of an underground and surface water including an illegal intake of water increased. Kitchen gardens in farms demand regular waterings. Thousands of the unregistered wells act on private sites. Manage even illegally to select water from the Don River in large volumes.
And one more serious problem: increase in winter releases because of year-round work of the Tsimlyansk state district power plant. Its owner, the large private company, does it at discretion. Water does not have time to accumulate in the Tsimlyansk reservoir in winter, when there is no navigation and locks are closed. But TPP is actively working all year round!
As Oleg Stepanyan summed up, in the nearest future everything will not get water supply.