China will move 345,000 people – the biggest forced resettlement since building the Three Gorges Dam – in a large water scheme that will draw on southern rivers to supply the increasingly dry north, Reuters reported, citing state media. The South-North Water Diversion project will create an eastern route that would bring water from the Yangtze River’s central and lower reaches to tap rivers that flow into the Danjiangkou Dam in Hubei province. The dam is being raised to store more water, which will then be drawn along 1,421 km of canals and tunnels to Beijing, Tianjin and surrounding areas. The resettlement – mostly of poor villagers – for the South-North Water Diversion project must be completed by 2013, said Zhang Jiyao, the official in charge of the project. The plan has sparked complaints from farmers, who argue that they have been relocated to poorer land with bleak job prospects.
Categories