Category: China’s Dams

China’s new mega-dam is a mega-problem

(July 12, 2012) Almost 20 years in the making, China’s Three Gorges mega-dam was declared complete on July 4 when the last of its 32 generators went online, 10 years after the first turbine went into operation. There is no end in sight, however, for costs associated with the vast and controversial project, which remains closer to disaster than triumph.

Dam madness

(July 4, 2012) As the fierce struggle between China’s hydropower industry and environmental conservationists rages anew, what has become clear in the meanwhile: the country’s rivers cannot sustain the current pace of development.

Three Gorges Dam: Another 110,000 to join exodus out of harm’s way

(May 17, 2012) The latest phase of the Three Gorges Dam relocation effort is expected to move 110,000 out of the Three Gorges Dam danger zone to safer ground (earlier estimates put that number at around 100,000). A new report by Beijing’s Caixin Online looks deeper at the area’s growing instability, the disagreements over who pays for what, and how residents are coping as the earth shifts, literally, beneath them.

New upheaval: 20,000 to relocate over landslide risk

(April 18, 2012) This week, China National Radio reported a total of nearly 100,000 people in the Three Gorges Dam reservoir region may face relocation over the next three to five years due to the threat of natural disasters. Today, China Daily’s U.S. edition reports another 20,000 in Central China’s Hubei province are slated for relocation due to the risk of landslides in the dam area. The relocation process is already underway; schools and hospitals in harm’s way to be evacuated first.

Omen on the Yangtze

(April 17, 2012) Twenty years ago this month, China’s epic Three Gorges Dam received construction approval from the Chinese government, with the blessing of a Canadian government report: both governments stood to benefit from the ill-conceived state vanity project at great cost to many. Probe International’s Patricia Adams looks back at how the symbol of China’s ‘rise’ has become an omen of all that is wrong with China and why a country like Canada would inflict such risks on citizens elsewhere.