NIA: Pantabangan Dam can withstand Intensity 10 quake

ANGELES CITY, Philippines – The administrator of the National Irrigation Authority (NIA) yesterday said the Pantabangan Dam, which can hold 1.75 billion cubic meters of water for irrigation and power generation, could withstand an Intensity 10 earthquake.

While the Pantabangan Dam is largely earthen, NIA administrator Antonio Nangel said it was designed to survive an earthquake like the one that devastated northeastern Japan last March 11.

Pantabangan Dam, whose construction was finished in 1974, is located at the center of the Carranglan, Pantabangan and Pampanga rivers.

Nangel noted that Pantabangan Dam, whose reservoir covers 8,420 hectares, withstood the Intensity 7.7 earthquake on July 16, 1990 with no damage at all.

The quake though caused changes in the flow of water downstream of the Digdig and Talavera rivers, reducing the area covered by the Talavera irrigation system from 6,000 hectares to only 500.

Nangel said the Pantabangan Dam was the first single largest infrastructure ever built by the government, irrigating over 100,000 hectares of farmlands in Central Luzon at present.    

He said the dam and reservoir division of the Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation System maintains the dam and manages the release of water.

The Pantabangan Dam consists of the main dam and the Aya dam area, and has a watershed area of 90,900 hectares.