Shanghai may slide under waves in 600 years -paper
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHANGHAI, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Rising sea levels due to global warming mean the gleaming skyscrapers of China's financial hub Shanghai could be entirely submerged in 600 years, a state newspaper said on Friday.
Academics worry that Shanghai, which state media report sank as much as 2.63 metres (8 ft 7 ins) between 1921 and 1965 due to the overpumping of underground water, may descend further under the weight of a construction frenzy of the past decade.
The sea had risen 20 mm (0.8 ins) since 2000 and should keep climbing over the next decade, the Shanghai Daily said, citing a report from the State Ocean Administration.
"Shanghai and a number of other coastal cities have been drawing heavily on groundwater for a couple of decades, depleting it and causing (the cities) to sink," said one U.S-based researcher.
Excessive construction of tall buildings was to blame for 30 percent of Shanghai's subsidence since 1990, Xinhua said, when the city embarked on a whirlwind of construction that has dotted its skyline with often bizarre, futuristic towers.
Lujiazui, the financial district where Japan's Mori Building Co is erecting a 101-storey skyscraper that could be the world's tallest, is sinking 12 to 15 millimetres a year, Xinhua said.
The area is home to the country's main stock exchange and a host of multinationals that have chosen to make Shanghai the focus of a push into the Chinese market. The city government is now considering limiting the number of high rises.
"This is apparently not a serious enough problem to stop the building of the world's tallest building," said one locally based foreign diplomat.
alertnet.org |
