Cao Guangjing, deputy general manager of the China Three Gorges Project Corporation, issued the order for the blowup of this section of the cofferdam downstream the Three Gorges Dam at 3 p.m. sharp. The dismantlement took 12.36 seconds and was declared a success by Cao. It was done by the Three Gorges Headquarters of Gezhouba (Group) Corporation. An engineer in charge of the explosion task told Xinhua that they had dug 482 holes on the 447.45-meter-long downstream cofferdam and used 20.5 tons of emulsified explosives, plus 3,896 detonators, in dismantling the temporary protective structure from the upper part. The dismantlement doesn’t have any impact on the Three Gorges Dam, according to Ma Shancai, an official of the China Three Gorges Project Corporation. Situated on the upper reaches of the Yangtze, the country’s longest river, the Three Gorges Project began construction in 1993. It consists of a big dam and at least 26 power generating units with a combined capacity of 18.2 million kilowatts. Fourteen of the power generators have been installed on the northern bank of the river, the remainders will be installed on the southern bank of the river. In accordance with the original plan, the Three Gorges Project is to be completed by 2009. A concrete cofferdam, with a length of 580 meters, was built between November 2002 and early 2003 to block the open-cut water channel that was used for carrying vessels after the Yangtze River was dammed in 1997 for the Three Gorges Project. And the section upstream the dam has already been dismantled after the dam was completed last May. Sun Haiming, deputy manager in charge of underground generator workshops with the Three Gorges Headquarters of Gezhouba (Group) Corporation, said they would use excavators to clear up the 2.01 million cubic meters of debris from Wednesday’s dismantlement to make way for water flow when the generating units on the southern bank of the Yangtze begin power generation in upcoming July. It is estimated the debris clear-up won’t be completed until late May.