Tweet
BEIJING - For centuries, poets have extolled the Three Gorges along the Yangtze River for their beauty. Boatmen feared their churning brown rapids. Their cliffs were pictured on China's 10-yuan note along with Mao Zedong.
But soon the gorges of Qutang, Wuxia and Xiling will be no more, submerged and transformed into narrow places in a vast lake behind the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project.
The sluice gates of the 630-foot-tall concrete wall began closing at midnight on May 31. Since then, state television has aired daily updates on the rising water.
The dam is the biggest of a series of vast government projects ranging from an attempt to replant vast tracts of forest to a multibillion-dollar project to shift water from China's wet south to its arid north.
Construction of the dam had pressed ahead despite complaints about the $22 billion cost, the forced relocation of some 1.3 million people, the inundation of temples and historic sites, and the danger of possible catastrophe in the event of a dam break.
Critics worry the dam will worsen pollution on the Yangtze and that the giant lake could make the hazy local weather even wetter.
The dam's main wall is now complete after 10 years of construction, but installation of turbines, generators and other equipment won't be finished until 2009.
Chinese leaders say the dam will both produce power and reduce chronic flooding along the Yangtze, though experts say both could be done more effectively and cheaply by a series of smaller dams.
Judith Shapiro, an expert on environmental politics at American University in Washington, describes the dam in her book "Mao's War Against Nature" as a monument to the Communist Party — an echo of "Maoist megaprojects that aimed both at mastery of nature and suppression of human freedoms."
As the dam's gates closed, state television devoted hours to live broadcasts showing water behind the dam creeping up the walls of buildings in abandoned towns.
By June 15, the water is expected to be 445 feet deep directly behind the wall, Xinhua said.
Xinhua said three diversion channels were left open to ensure an adequate flow of water on the 4,000-mile-long Yangtze, which runs from the plateaus of Qinghai province in the west to the eastern coast near Shanghai.
The national legislature approved the dam in 1992 despite an unprecedented show of opposition by normally compliant delegates.
Construction began in 1993. Since then, more than 735 million cubic feet of cement have gone into the dam's wall.
The dam is regarded as a personal project of the Communist Party's former second-in-command, Li Peng, a Soviet-trained engineer who retired in March as head of the national legislature.
The dam is to start producing power this year and will expand its capacity to 18.2 million kilowatts from 26 power-generating units.
By the time it is completed, the water level is to reach 578 feet behind the dam.
Shipping, banned in areas surrounding the 254-square-mile Yangtze river reservoir from April 10, is to resume on June 16, Xinhua said.
But soon the gorges of Qutang, Wuxia and Xiling will be no more, submerged and transformed into narrow places in a vast lake behind the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project.
The sluice gates of the 630-foot-tall concrete wall began closing at midnight on May 31. Since then, state television has aired daily updates on the rising water.
The dam is the biggest of a series of vast government projects ranging from an attempt to replant vast tracts of forest to a multibillion-dollar project to shift water from China's wet south to its arid north.
Construction of the dam had pressed ahead despite complaints about the $22 billion cost, the forced relocation of some 1.3 million people, the inundation of temples and historic sites, and the danger of possible catastrophe in the event of a dam break.
Critics worry the dam will worsen pollution on the Yangtze and that the giant lake could make the hazy local weather even wetter.
The dam's main wall is now complete after 10 years of construction, but installation of turbines, generators and other equipment won't be finished until 2009.
Chinese leaders say the dam will both produce power and reduce chronic flooding along the Yangtze, though experts say both could be done more effectively and cheaply by a series of smaller dams.
Judith Shapiro, an expert on environmental politics at American University in Washington, describes the dam in her book "Mao's War Against Nature" as a monument to the Communist Party — an echo of "Maoist megaprojects that aimed both at mastery of nature and suppression of human freedoms."
As the dam's gates closed, state television devoted hours to live broadcasts showing water behind the dam creeping up the walls of buildings in abandoned towns.
By June 15, the water is expected to be 445 feet deep directly behind the wall, Xinhua said.
Xinhua said three diversion channels were left open to ensure an adequate flow of water on the 4,000-mile-long Yangtze, which runs from the plateaus of Qinghai province in the west to the eastern coast near Shanghai.
The national legislature approved the dam in 1992 despite an unprecedented show of opposition by normally compliant delegates.
Construction began in 1993. Since then, more than 735 million cubic feet of cement have gone into the dam's wall.
The dam is regarded as a personal project of the Communist Party's former second-in-command, Li Peng, a Soviet-trained engineer who retired in March as head of the national legislature.
The dam is to start producing power this year and will expand its capacity to 18.2 million kilowatts from 26 power-generating units.
By the time it is completed, the water level is to reach 578 feet behind the dam.
Shipping, banned in areas surrounding the 254-square-mile Yangtze river reservoir from April 10, is to resume on June 16, Xinhua said.
Comment