Nineteen of the 22 water outlets at the bottom of the dam were closed in a computer-controlled operation that took about nine hours. It began at midnight on June 1 without the expected fanfare: A ceremony to mark the occasion had been cancelled because of China’s current battle against severe acute respiratory syndrome.

By 9 p.m. on June 1, the water level on the upstream side of the dam had risen to almost 107 metres above sea level, while downstream it was 66 metres. Three of the sluice gates will remain open to provide some flow of water, in an effort to keep the Yangtze River navigable below the dam. By June 15, the reservoir is expected to reach the 135-metre level.

Pointing to the dam, just 1,000 metres away across the river, one elderly man in the crowd said: "We have contributed too much to the big dam. My old house stood there just a few years ago, but now – nothing."

The man’s grandson explained: "My grandfather comes here every day, from sunrise to sunset, just to sit and watch, and think of the old home and garden that he has lost to the reservoir."

"But you have a new home in the new town. Aren’t you happy with that?" a visitor asked.

"Of course the new town is nice, but I feel sad not to be able to see the Yangtze every day," the old man said. "It’s very hard for me to get used to a way of life without the river. I couldn’t fall asleep for several weeks after I moved to the new place. Before, I was able to see the river easily when I opened my door every morning."

"Most people think we urban migrants benefit most from the project, but this is not true," a young woman said. "First of all, we received the least compensation: 17,000 yuan [RMB] went to those who moved far away and 7,000 to the farmers who settled nearby, but nothing for us."

"How about your job?" the visitor asked. "Since the big dam is right there, why don’t you go and work on the construction site?"

"No, no," she replied. "Those jobs are not for us. All of them have been contracted out, and the contractors don’t like us working on the site. Most of the workers building the dam come from Sichuan province.

"Besides, you’ll see many modern machines at the dam site, but few people. The situation is completely different from when the Gezhouba dam was being built [in the 1980s] and thousands of people were employed."

"Look, someone’s still working her field." The old man pointed to a woman on a slope just 1,000 metres away from the dam.

The visitor walked over to the field, where two people were working. "Is this your house?" the visitor asked one of the farmers, gesturing to a shabby structure.

"I have an apartment in the new town, so this shelter is just for when I’m working here," the woman replied. "I stay here all day and go home in the evening."

"But how can you continue farming now that the reservoir is being filled?"

"I can farm here for two or three more years because this land is above 135 metres. You see the signs," she said, pointing to markers that indicate her field lies between 135 and 175 metres above sea level.

There is no job for her in the new town, she said, so she has continued farming to earn a living.

"My son would also rather grow vegetables than run the risks involved in operating a motorbike-taxi operation, which many of the young migrants without jobs are doing now."

"We would have had a better life without the dam," the woman’s son said. "Everything has gone with the dam. The old town of Maoping was on relatively flat land facing the river – the market was here, the high school was there, and the cinema was over there."

After the mountains were levelled to build a replacement Maoping, then-premier Zhu Rongji visited the brand-new city. "He said even the roads are wider here than in Beijing, and the office buildings in the capital are not as modern and beautiful as those in Maoping," the young man said.

"The new town looks nice and beautiful," he added wistfully. "But what is my future? I really don’t know."