Geothermal plant ‘triggered earthquake’ in S. Korea
SEOUL: A rare earthquake in South Korea was triggered by the country’s first experimental geothermal power plant, a team of government- commissioned experts said yesterday.
The southeastern port city of Pohang was rattled by a 5.4- magnitude earthquake in November 2017 — the secondmost powerful tremor ever in the normally seismically stable South.
Dozens of people were injured and more than 1,500 left homeless — while a nationwide college entrance exam was postponed in an unprecedented move as authorities scrambled with recovery efforts.
A year- long governmentcommissioned study pointed to the geothermal power plant as the cause.
The plant works by injecting high- pressure water deep underground to tap heat from the Earth’s crust, but the process had produced micro-sized seismic activity as a result, said Lee Kangkun, who led the research.
“And as time passed, this triggered the earthquake in Pohang,” he added. “We concluded that the Pohang earthquake was a ‘ triggered quake’. It wasn’t a natural earthquake.”
Pohang residents filed a lawsuit against the government after the quake, and following the assessment Seoul expressed its “deep regret”.
The geothermal plant — which was temporarily suspended during the study — will be “permanently shuttered”, the trade, industry and energy ministry said in a statement.
It cost around 80 billion won ( US$ 71 million) to build and test operations began in 2016. — AFP