The builders of the Three Gorges dam have suddenly announced a dramatic change in the project schedule: The reservoir, which was filled to the 135-metre level in June, is to be raised an additional four metres by the end of October.

Thousands of monkeys that fled in fear as the Three Gorges reservoir began rising have returned to their native habitat on one of the Yangtze’s most beautiful tributaries. But they have come back to a much dirtier river.

China has used both the SARS health crisis and the crackdown on the
falun gong spiritual movement as reasons to detain migrants who dare to
complain about the Three Gorges resettlement operation.

Deirdre Chetham, the author of Before the Deluge: The Vanishing World of the Yangtze’s Three Gorges, is featured tonight on WBAI’s Asia Pacific Web broadcast, starting at 8 p.m.

People who were moved to make way for the Three Gorges project gathered at Maoping near the dam site on June 1 to watch the reservoir begin to fill and submerge their old homes.

Experts from Beijing taking part in a final inspection before the
Three Gorges reservoir is filled next month are being handled with
special care by project officials desperate to prevent a local outbreak
of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The current health crisis in China will have no impact on plans to
fill the Three Gorges reservoir next month, state media reports.

A Three Gorges Project official has said that 1.35 million residents in the dam area will need be relocated, 220,000 more than the original plan.

Shipping companies on the Yangtze River face a steep drop in income for the next two months while navigation is suspended near the Three Gorges dam.

‘The dam will never collapse and the reservoir will never flood the cities along the downstream valley,’ Lu Youmei reassures students at Beijing University.