Japan inspects new hydropower plant site

Japan inspects new hydropower plant site

Environment

A ten-men team of Japanese engineers was recently at Shan State's biggest waterfall on an initial surveying trip, reported local sources coming across the border. 

The team arrived on 19 September, escorted by Col Khin Maung Myint, the area commander of Kengtawng, a township newly carved out of Mongnai, Loilem District, Southern Shan State. Its members spent about three hours at Zong-arng, the 975 ft high chute with a generating capacity of 60 megawatts, according to Shan State Journal, before returning to Taunggyi, said the sources. 

The visit followed the abandonment of the project by Chinese engineers in December 2001 after 62 people including 19 Chinese, 21 Burmese employees and 22 Burmese soldiers died under mysterious circumstances within a span of one month. [Hydorelectricity plant construction postponed, S.H.A.N., 24 December 2001]

The present Thai government has also expressed several times of its interest to build a 3,300 megawatt dam across the Salween, roughly a hundred miles east of Kengtawng.

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