Japan-Funded Dam Claims Lives of 6 Workers; 4 Others Injured

SAN NICOLAS, Pangasinan - The controversial, Japanese-funded San Roque dam here claimed its first victims Thursday with the death of six construction workers when they plunged 165 feet down a tunnel. Six others were injured.

The accident happened when the brakes of a descending elevator carrying the 10 workers failed, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

The $1.2 billion San Roque multipurpose dam here, about 200 km north of Manila, is designed to generate 345 megawatts of electricity, control floods and irrigate 87,000 hectares of farmland. It is expected to become one of Asia’s biggest.

The dam, which is expected to uproot hundreds of indigenous families depending on upland agriculture, is designed and built by New York-based Raytheon Engineers and Constructors, Inc. and will be run by San Roque Power Corp., a consortium that includes Sithe Energies of the United States and Japan’s Marubeni Corp. and Kansai Electric Corp.

Japan’s Export-Import Bank is financing the project.

The dam is the third to be built along the Agno River. The two existing dams – Ambuklao and Angat – forced hundreds of Ibalois and other indigenous families to relocate almost 50 years ago.

The project has been opposed by local farmers, the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA), environmentalists and other groups.

Plans in the mid-‘70s to build the multimillion-dollar Chico Dam, also in northern Philippines, were aborted following resistance by indigenous communities and the New People’s Army (NPA). At least another Japanese corporation, Marubeni, was also involved in the project. #