Egyptian geologists assume that the reason why more severe
earthquakes have occurred relatively frequently during the recent past is the
enormous compressive load of the storage-lake water on the earth’s crust.
Hamdan (1981: 1,016) compares the danger posed by the gigantic amount
of water stored here (up to 120 billion m3
) to that of an atomic bomb that
may explode at any time. Wüst (1983: 768) describes the situation in the fol-
lowing way:
If a bomb hit the top of the Dam, the water pouring out uncontrolled would
make the Dam burst in its complete breadth within a few hours. The masses of
water sweeping across the whole of Egypt (they would be at least the discharge
of two years within hours or days) would cause utter devastation from Aswan
to Damietta, destroy all cultivated land, and most probably about 99 per cent
of the total population would lose their lives. Cracks in the Dam, as they have
already been discovered, can lead to disastrous effects, even in case of minor
earthquakes. It is hard to say if and to what extent the enormous weight of
the water masses of the lake of 164 billion tons will have its effects on the
tectonics of the area. It is for sure, however, that only 200 km E of the lake,
there is one of the most active faults of the earth surface: the Red-Sea Fault,
along which earthquakes occur quite often.