(January 8, 2006) Next year China will flood the Yangtze valley, and one of the world’s great sights will be lost forever. Go now before it’s too late, the author urges.

Chongqing: Boat No 6 of the Chongqing Changjiang Shipping Corporation of China sat docked at the bottom of a steep flight of steps at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jianling Rivers. This was the craft designated to take us along the world’s third longest river, from Chongqing, through the fabled Three Gorges, to Yichang 660km downstream to the east. I looked down longingly at its sheets of green and white rusting metal: sanctuary, of sorts. It had not been an easy day. After a dawn breakfast of dumplings, congee and fermented eggs, we had lurched and swerved for six hours by bus and then trudged down to the dock laden with luggage in the 36C heat. The prospect of a few days floating down one of the world’s most scenic rivers held no small measure of appeal. It was 8.30pm and we had just set sail, leaving behind the smog-shrouded metropolis of Chongqing, the largest municipality in the world, and home to 30 million people. “Could you tell us when we pass White Crane Ridge?’ someone ventured. “Er, what is that?” stumbled our guide. An ancient navigation aide, White Crane Ridge is one of the many cultural sites under threat from the construction of the Three Gorges Dam and the resultant flooding of the Yangtze valley. A sandstone belt that breaks the surface of the river only during the dry winter season, the emergence of the White Crane Ridge reveals thousands of engravings, mostly relating to periodic sightings of a pair of Tang Dynasty carp carved into the sandstone, and so chronicling the rise and fall of the river over the years. The carp’s bellies marked the low-water line, and sailors on the treacherous waters of the Yangtze would navigate by comparing the water level to the position of the fish. The flooding will submerge this historical record for ever, eroding 12 centuries-worth of engravings within the blink of 10 years. The first stage of flooding is scheduled for 2003, when the water level is due to rise to 135m, turning the river from Chongqing to Sandouping, just upstream of Yichang, into a 632km reservoir.

The Guardian, January 8, 2006