130 earthquakes in 14 days.. Will the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam collapse soon?

While Ethiopia used to experience an average of 3 to 6 earthquakes annually, it was exposed to 130 earthquakes in 14 days (from December 21, 2024 to January 4, 2025), and this increase in seismic activity raised questions about its potential impact on the Renaissance Dam.

Although experts agree that the strength and location of these earthquakes do not pose a direct threat to the safety of the dam, opinions are divided on the interpretation of public reactions. While some see them as scientifically justified, others see them as deviating from the core of the main issue, which is the need to reach an agreement on cooperative operation between the Renaissance Dam and the High Dam, to ensure Egypt is protected from the risks of water shortages in the future.

Dr. Essam Heggy, a professor at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California, was one of the most cautious about the Egyptian public reactions. He wrote in a comment on his Facebook page that they were directed by the media to play on the feelings of the masses who imagine that divine justice for this issue will be the collapse of the dam, which is (a misconception that makes matters worse) in his opinion, as it distracts from more important questions such as what has been going on in the negotiations for 13 years? Why have they not made progress? What are the expected gains and what are the settlements that have been offered? This portrays public opinion and scientific opinion in Egypt as lacking an understanding of the nature of the river, and makes the demand for justice in the distribution of its resources more complicated.

Dam collapse... weak possibility

The accurate scientific opinion, as stated by Dr. Hajji in his comment, is that “the current seismic activity in Ethiopia is concentrated in the Great African Rift Valley, which is more than 560 kilometers away from the site of the Renaissance Dam, and is a geological fault that has been active for more than 25 million years. This means that this seismic activity is not a recent occurrence, but rather the result of volcanoes that become active from time to time at intervals ranging from tens to thousands of years. These volcanoes are preceded by natural seismic activity, such as what is happening today, and it is natural that it will continue in the coming period, and not because of the dam lake, as is rumored in the media.”

He continued, explaining that natural disasters such as earthquakes have a major impact on facilities such as dams, but when they are built, the seismic nature of the construction site is taken into account and the design is made according to international standards that protect the facilities from expected tremors. Therefore, the devastating earthquakes that occurred in Turkey and Morocco in the previous two years did not cause the collapse of the dams near them, and therefore the possibility of the collapse of the Renaissance Dam due to the current earthquakes is weak.

Dr. Abbas Sharaky, a professor of geology at Cairo University, does not disagree with what Haji said, that the current earthquakes are so weak that they could affect the Renaissance Dam, but he disagrees with what appears in his comment about excluding the effects of earthquakes on the Renaissance Dam.

"It is true that the recent earthquakes occurred 560 kilometers from the site of the Renaissance Dam, but there was an earthquake in May 2023 100 kilometers from the Renaissance Dam, and although it was of low intensity (about 4.2 degrees), that does not eliminate the possibility of stronger earthquakes occurring in the coming years that will affect the dam," Sharaqi said.

Scientific hypothesis awaiting investigation

Sharaki does not assert that the dam project is responsible for the frequency of recent earthquakes in Ethiopia, but at the same time he raises a scientific hypothesis that needs further verification, which is raised by the clear coincidence between the escalation in the frequency of earthquakes and developments in the process of filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir.

Sharaki explains that the first filling of the reservoir began after the rainy season in 2020, and about 4.9 billion cubic meters of water were stored. This year, Ethiopia witnessed only 3 earthquakes. With the storage of about 13.5 billion additional cubic meters of water in 2021, 8 earthquakes occurred during the year, and the volume of stored water was increased to about 22 billion cubic meters in 2022, and with it the number of earthquakes increased during the year to reach 12 earthquakes. With the fourth filling in 2023, the total volume of stored water reached about 31 billion cubic meters, and in return the number of earthquakes increased to reach 38 earthquakes during the year. In 2024, the amount of water in the dam reservoir reached 60 billion cubic meters, and in the same year the total number of earthquakes increased to 90 earthquakes, and during 4 days in 2025, the total number of earthquakes reached 32 earthquakes.

He moves from this digital review to say: “Doesn’t this coincidence between the increasing frequency of earthquakes and the increase in the volume of stored water raise questions about a relationship between them that requires studies to confirm or deny it?”

Water leakage.. does it stimulate earthquakes?

Sharaki finds in a study by a research team from the American universities of Michigan and Arizona, published in July of last year in the journal "PNAS", affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences in the United States of America, what supports his opinion, as this study indicated that a huge amount of water stored in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir had leaked, estimated at about 19.8 billion cubic meters, during the first three years of filling the dam.

He says: “Perhaps one of the logical explanations is that this leaked water reached the Blue Nile Rift, which is connected to the Renaissance Dam area, and moved from there to the source of the current earthquakes, which is the African Rift, which extends along East Africa, to be a catalyst for the occurrence of earthquakes at this increasing rate.”

Leaking water can play a role in triggering earthquakes through three effects:

• Increased pore pressure: When water seeps into cracks or gaps underground, it increases the pore pressure in the rocks. This pressure reduces the friction between the rock surfaces on either side of the crack, making the rocks more likely to move. If there are tectonic stresses stored in the area, the increased pore pressure may cause this energy to be released in the form of an earthquake.
• Stimulating fault movement: Infiltrating water can stimulate movement in existing faults. If the faults are close to the point of slip or movement, adding water can reduce friction and trigger sudden movement in the form of an earthquake.
• Mineral dissolution and rock erosion: Water containing chemicals can cause minerals in rocks to dissolution and erode over a long period of time, weakening faults and making them easier to slide.

Sharaqi returns to the language of numbers again, saying: “When 11 earthquakes occurred last Friday, the largest of which was a magnitude of 5.5, and 6 earthquakes on Saturday, the most dangerous of which was a magnitude of 5.8, which is the first of its kind of this magnitude in 15 years, all of that should draw attention to the impact of the Renaissance Dam.”

extra amount of leak

Karem Abdel Mohsen, a researcher at the American universities of Michigan and Arizona, and a participant in the study referred to by Dr. Sharaqi, agrees with what the professor of geological sciences at Cairo University said, that the leakage of water from the dam reservoir may be a factor that stimulates earthquakes in Ethiopia, and requires further studies on it.

Abdul Mohsen, like Sharaki, resorts to the language of numbers, saying, “Their previous numbers in the study, which spoke of a leakage amounting to 19.8 billion cubic meters during the first three years of filling the dam, were added to 9.6 billion during the fourth filling of the dam reservoir.”

In a study presented last December at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Abdel Mohsen and his colleagues demonstrated, using “direct measurements” from satellites, that during the fourth filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (on September 28, 2023), the water reached a capacity of 39.8 billion cubic meters and a height of 620 meters. By June 18, 2024, the amount of water had decreased to 30.2 billion cubic meters and a height of 614 meters. This means that 9.6 billion cubic meters of water leaked, bringing the total water leaked during the four filling periods of the dam to about 30 billion cubic meters.

Abdul Mohsen likens the effects of water across geological faults and cracks to the effect of grease on gears in machines.

“When grease is added to gears in machines, the friction between them is reduced, allowing them to move more smoothly and efficiently,” he says. “Water also acts as a lubricant between tectonic plates moving along faults. When water seeps in, it reduces the friction between the plates, making it easier for the plates to sometimes slide, which can trigger earthquakes when there is a build-up of energy in these areas.”

He added, "This potential impact of the dam on causing earthquakes hundreds of kilometres away from its location, as a result of the leaking water moving long distances, means that the effects that extend to the dam area itself may be weak, and therefore will not have an impact on its structure."

Local landslides in the dam area

The expected impacts on the dam structure will not come from earthquakes far from its location, but what Dr. Abdel Aziz Mohamed Abdel Aziz, Professor of Exploration and Stratigraphic Evaluation Engineering at the Department of Petroleum Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University, fears is the occurrence of local collapses in the dam area itself.

“Earthquakes occur at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where these plates move towards each other in the boundary area, and when they collide with each other, intense pressure may occur, which leads to the accumulation of energy inside the Earth, and when the pressure exceeds the frictional limits between the plates, a sudden slip occurs, which causes an earthquake. These effects, which the water leakage gives the opportunity to occur easily and smoothly, will be far from the body of the dam (the closest earthquake to the body of the dam occurred in May 2023, 100 km away, with a magnitude of about 4.2 degrees), but the greatest fear is the silting process that occurs in the dam lake.”

Abdul Aziz explains the silting process as “the accumulation of sediments (such as clay, sand, and silt) that are carried by the flowing water into the dam lake over time. As the water continues to flow into the lake, the speed of the water slows down, allowing the sediments to settle at the bottom. Over time, if the accumulation process is not managed well, it causes the problem of cavitation, which is a sudden subsidence or collapse of the ground, which may occur in areas near the dam.”

Cavitation occurs for several reasons, including the uneven accumulation of sediments at the bottom of the lake, which leads to increased pressure on areas with a higher sediment density, leading to cavitation or subsidence in the ground. The accumulation of sediments in certain areas of the dam can also cause instability in the lands surrounding the lake, especially in places where the ground layers are not solid. This applies to the case of the Renaissance Dam, which is built on an area containing limestone rocks. In some cases, the accumulation of sediments may cause increased pressure on the soil surrounding the dam or on the dam structure itself, leading to cracks or collapses.

While some estimates indicate that the total accumulation of sediments in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir could reach about 20 billion cubic meters over the coming decades, this means that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir, which is about 74 billion cubic meters, will lose 27% of its storage capacity due to sediments, as Dr. Abdel Aziz explains.

Do Egyptians care about the safety of the dam?

Abdel Aziz believes that ensuring the safety of the dam is no less important than monitoring the extent of its effects on Egypt’s share of water, based on the fact that the collapse of the dam will cause widespread destruction in the sisterly state of Sudan, and will require rapid measures to be implemented by Egypt within a week to prepare the High Dam and the Toshka spillway to receive the flowing water.

For the same reasons, Dr. Sharaqi adopts the same opinion, adding that “we do not wish for a collapse scenario, because it means the loss of a large amount of water that could have reached Egypt for its benefit. I always describe the water stored in the Renaissance Dam as “the Egyptian trust in Ethiopia,” which we must be keen to reassure ourselves about and work to recover.”

To reclaim this trust, Dr. Haji believes that what should concern us is reaching an agreement for cooperative operation between the Renaissance Dam and the High Dam, to protect Egypt from water scarcity, saying: “This is the main point of discussion that the negotiations should focus on, and should be of interest to all of us, instead of being concerned with the risk of the collapse of the Renaissance Dam.”

In a study recently published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, he believes that a solution to the crisis of this dam is still possible, as he presented a practical model for sharing the Nile waters and operating dams on it in a way that ensures the generation of sustainable energy while reducing the water deficit in the downstream countries.

Source: Al Jazeera