Translation by Three Gorges Probe

The people of Wangusi village on the Xiangxi River, a major Yangtze
tributary 45 kilometres upstream of the Three Gorges dam, have seen
their way of life dramatically altered by the filling of the reservoir.

The 2,890 villagers, in 804 households, have faced tremendous
difficulty getting across the river since the Three Gorges reservoir
was filled to 135 metres above sea level in June 2003. This is because
when the water suddenly rose 70 metres, the river also became much
wider, and more expensive to cross.

To make way for the world’s biggest dam, many of the villagers had
been moved up from the base of the mountain, or over from the west side
of the Xiangxi River, to be resettled on higher ground on the east side.

On many occasions they have looked in helpless frustration across
the river to their fields, and to the town of Xiangxi, with its shops,
schools and hospital. Sometimes, they have paid a tragically high price
for the problems they now face in getting to the other side.

On Aug. 14 last year, villager Xiong Zuozheng was desperate to get
his daughter, who was undergoing a difficult labour, to the hospital
across the river. The boat took a long time to arrive, and although the
woman survived the ordeal, the delay of more than an hour cost the life
of the baby.

Bad weather sometimes prevents the ferries from running, keeping children away from their school on the other side of the river.

The Xiangxi valley is famous for its oranges, but growers now worry
about the cost and logistics of getting their produce to the markets
and depots across the river.

Li Ziyun, an orange-grower in Wangusi village, had a hard time
bringing himself to talk about his brush with death that occurred five
months after the filling of the reservoir. He had been transporting
2,000 kilograms of oranges over to the west side of the river when his
boat capsized, throwing him into the cold water. He managed to survive,
but lost all his oranges to the swollen river.

Another farmer, Xiong Yan, complained that more than 1,000 kilos of
his fruit had spoiled last year as a result of transportation delays.
He earned only 3,000 yuan (US$375) from his crop in 2004, compared with
annual revenue of more than 7,000 yuan (US$875) before he was resettled
on the east side of the river.

Transportation costs have risen along with the reservoir level.
Farmers are now having to pay more per kilogram to get their oranges
across the wider river. At the same time, traders have lowered the
per-kilo purchase price that growers receive.

Affected villages included Xiangxi, Xiangjiadian and Wangusi (part
of Guizhou town) on the east side of the Xiangxi River and Longmaxi
(Quyuan town) on the north side of the Yangtze River. Thousands of
villagers in this area who can’t afford to take ferries across the
river have effectively been cut off from the outside world.

According to a survey conducted by the Zigui county government, 165
kilometres of road and 36 footbridges were submerged in the county when
the reservoir was filled to its initial level in 2003.

About 14,000 county residents have reduced mobility as a result,
with many now having a hard time getting to work or school. In the
Three Gorges area as a whole, an estimated 123,400 people face the same
problem to varying degrees.

Qu Dingqiang, a retired local official in Wangusi, told the Hubei
Daily that quite a few villagers have not ventured into the outside
world since the reservoir was filled. Once he had seen an old man
sobbing by the river. The man desperately missed his daughter, who
lived on the other side of the river, but he couldn’t afford the
two-yuan ferry ticket to go and see her.

Mr. Qu’s own neighbour had not been able to visit her 80-year-old
father on the west side of the river since the Xiangxi became wider,
because she couldn’t afford the four-yuan round-trip fare.

Mr. Qu, as a retired official, lives on a guaranteed pension income,
but even he feels the pinch of the increased transportation costs. He
did some simple math, using his own family as an example. With a return
ticket on a Xiangxi River ferry costing four yuan per person (six yuan
to make the trip back and forth across the mainstream of the Yangtze),
it would cost one person 192 yuan (US$24) annually to make four
round-trips a month, and a three-person family would be paying 576 yuan
(US$72) a year.

Farmers whose fields are located on the west side of the river have
to pay as much as 1,200 yuan (US$150) a year to tend their fields.
"Ordinary villagers cannot afford this," Mr. Qu sighed. [Average annual
income in Zigui county last year was 2,300 yuan (US$280).]

"The situation will only get worse," one local official said. "These
[Three Gorges] migrants will have to pay even more next year to get
across the river when it becomes much wider after it is filled to the
156-metre level."

 

From an article in Hubei Daily (Hubei ribao), May 16, 2005.