December 8, 1998

BEIJING, Dec. 08, 1998 — (Agence France Presse) China’s relocation quota for the giant Three Gorges Dam project has fallen behind this year with only 49,000 people moving out of their homes near the Yangtze river, the China Daily said Tuesday.

By the start of December, only 73 percent of 67,000 people due to be moved out of their homes this year had gone while only 60 percent of new housing for this year had been completed, the newspaper said.

The 632 square kilometer (252 square mile) Three Gorges reservoir, which is due to be filled in 2003, will force the resettlement of 1.2 million people.

The central government expects to spend 40 billion yuan ($4.8 billion) for resettlement by the dam’s completion in 2009.

But according to Chinese sociologists, resettlement work has been plagued by corruption, falsification of figures, poor planning and inadequate resources.

In March officials from the area around the planned Three Gorges Dam appealed to neighboring provinces to help relocate hundreds of thousands of villagers being made homeless by the mammoth project.

The Chongqing municipality in the southeast of China, where 85 percent of those whose homes will be swamped by the dam live, "doesn’t have enough room for them in terms of arable land and financial support," a local official told the China Daily.

"Many difficulties lie ahead as we relocate these people," said Chongqing vice mayor Cheng Yiju.