Dam forces relocations of 300,000 more

The entire population of the North West Territories and Nunavit is equivalent to a small Southern Ontario town. The Chinese on the other hand have a much greater population issue - yet still are able to build tremendous power dams. Building hydro capability in the north would displace no one and provide many jobs. Yet the venom of protests would be many times greater against Canada than China - it would seem that displacing mosquitoes is much more news worthy than displacing hundreds of thousands of people.



300,000 more people will have to move to escape land hazards

Local residents in Shuangjiang town, Yunyang county of Chongqing, search for reusable steel bars and bricks in a dismantled building on Sep 21, 2009. They can make 100 yuan ($15) to 200 yuan each per day by collecting materials that can be recycled. [Rao Guojun/China Daily]

CHONGQING: At least another 300,000 people living near the Three Gorges Dam will have to be relocated to protect the environment. This is in addition to the 1.138 million people already relocated for the world's largest hydropower project, a local migration official said yesterday.

As part of the nation's strategy to provide cheap energy and prevent flood and draught, the project began in 1992 and began water reserving and hydro-electricity harnessing in 2008. Officials have "basically" finished the first phase of resettling about 1.3 million people in Chongqing and Hubei province, a local government work report said.

"A total 54.18-billion yuan investment has been designated to facilitate the migration project that helped 1.138 million displaced Chongqing people settle down," Chongqing acting mayor Huang Qifan said at an ongoing annual conference of the city's People's Congress.

However, the deputy director of the migration bureau of the heavy-weighted Wanzhou district of Chongqing, which used to be home for one-fifth of the total migration population, told China Daily yesterday that at least another 300,000 people would have to move out of the reservoir area. Read more.