Reservoir Dogged

Ancient traditions and centuries-old villages are to be swamped by the Yangtze river in China's biggest architectural feat since the Great Wall. Struan Stevenson MEP discovers displaced communities riven with hopes, fears and deep suspicion in the shadow of the Three Gorges Dam

HU ZONGWEI stands proudly in the middle of the bare concrete floor, his crumpled grey suit betraying his status as a man of importance in the village. Hu Zongwei is the local Communist Party chief. He is honoured to have been asked to show the foreign visitors around his home in New Sunshine Village, Zhu Guigi county.

Outside, the air is filled with the constant hum and clank of the world's largest building site, where 20,000 Chinese are working day and night to complete the monumental Three Gorges Dam by 2009. Another 230,000 workers are engaged in various aspects of the project, the biggest undertaking in China since the building of the Great Wall.

New Sunshine Village is one of hundreds of resettlement villages built to house the 1.9 million people who will lose their homes in the rising waters as the dam nears completion. More than 100 towns and cities will be submerged and mountains which have been revered by the Chinese since time began, will be reduced to tiny islands under a reservoir hundreds of metres deep and nearly 400 miles long.

Hu Zongwei steps through his front door, made of a plastic curtain, and gestures to the rows of new apartment blocks which, he says, were built to house more than 5000 farmers displaced from nearby valleys. Each farmer has been given a flat and a small plot of land. More than 300,000 farmers have already been relocated. Although Hu Zongwei puts on a brave face, the farmers complain the land they've been allocated is poor and less productive than the farms they were forced to leave. They say the modern apartment blocks are sub-standard and shoddy, and are appalled that their ancestors' graves will be drowned under 175 metres of water.

Shredded sweet potato lies drying on the pavements. One lane of the main street has been covered with barley. Women sweep and turn the grain with brushes and rakes while the men sit and smoke and contemplate the future. Only the children smile.

New Sunshine Village is perched on the edge of a steeply rising slope which plunges down to the swirling waters of the Yangtze. Known by the Chinese as Chang Jiang (Long River), the Yangtze at 3937 miles is the world's third longest river after only the Nile and the Amazon. Following devastating floods, which drowned thousands in the mid-Fifties, Mao Tse-tung ordered feasibility studies on damming the river. More serious floods in 1998 accelerated the project. Now, the earth trembles to the thump of pile drivers and the roar of Caterpillars. A dust haze fills the air from horizon to horizon.

The largest ever system of locks is being built, which the engineers say will allow 10,000-ton ocean-going ships to sail 1500 miles inland to Chongqing, the capital of the local province. The dam's hydropower turbines are expected to produce as much electricity as 18 giant nuclear plants. Beijing is determined to demonstrate that socialism has made world-beating technological advances. The government claims the Three Gorges Dam will solve several major national problems at a stroke, taming the fabled Yangtze, providing energy for China's burgeoning economy and opening the country's interior to navigation.

The Three Gorges Dam is being built in an area best known for its spectacular scenery. Vertical crags tower above the brown waters of the river. Towns and villages perch precariously on the steep hillsides, their ancient temples bearing silent witness to the passing dynasties. The rising waters will soon engulf thousands of years of history.

Zhang Fei Temple faces Yunyang County across the Yangtze River. It was built 2000 years ago, at the end of the Shu Han Kingdom, to commemorate Marquis Zhang Fei, and contains many priceless inscribed stone tablets and woodcuts.

When the waters of the dam rise to their full 175 metres above sea level, Zhang Fei Temple will be completely submerged. Archaeologists and historians say that nearly 1300 important sites will also disappear under the reservoir's waters, while 10,000 tombs will fall below the water line, prompting the Beijing authorities to approve a relocation programme for the dead as well as the living. Financial assistance is being provided to help local families remove and cremate their ancestors' remains, and rebury the ashes at new burial sites.

There are also major concerns that the dam may prove to be an environmental disaster, not only contributing to the silt accumulation in the river, but also causing widespread pollution. The 100 towns and cities that will be inundated by the rising waters have been abandoned to their fate. Few attempts have been made to remove toxic waste and other potential pollutants from industrial and residential sites. Experts believe that toxins will leach into the Yangtze creating a serious health hazard. By slowing the river, the Three Gorges Dam will also prevent these toxins being flushed out to sea, allowing a concentration of pollution in the river itself. The Yangtze could become the world's longest poisoned river.

Inevitably, in a project this size, crime is rife. A hundred officials engaged in the $28 billion project have been convicted of corruption. Reports state that 97 have been punished, including one sentenced to death for embezzling more than $1 million. The resettlement schemes have attracted particular attention from the authorities in Beijing amid claims that millions of dollars targeted at building new homes for the displaced population have been embezzled. As a result, experts have questioned design and construction standards and even the dam's safety has been queried.

Such incidents have prompted rare open criticism from the Chinese leadership. In early 1999, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji inspected the dam site, warning senior officials "the responsibility on your shoulders is heavier than a mountain. Any carelessness or negligence will bring disaster to our future generations and cause irretrievable losses".

For Hu Zongwei such fears are unfounded. As he leads the party of foreign visitors along the main street in New Sunshine Village he talks about his plans to buy a machine for his wife to make noodles and a truck for himself to transport goods to market so that he can earn more money for his family.

Hu's family and more than 800 other Three Gorges villagers left their former homes in Yunyang County to resettle here, fairly close to their ancestral homes. They are the lucky ones. Many families have been relocated thousands of miles away in China's ten other provinces.

Meanwhile the thunderous noise of construction continues day and night as 100 million cubic metres of earth and stone are excavated. Mountains are literally being moved. The first blocking of the Yangtze took place here three years ago. Already the waters are rising, and with them the fears of whole communties

Copyright 2001
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