The Three Gorges dam is partly to blame for dangerously low water levels in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River that have caused dozens of ships to run aground, official Chinese media reports say.
Yangtze shipping faces 23-day disruption
Shipping on the Yangtze River will be disrupted for more than three weeks starting Friday [Feb. 20], as the upstream section of the Three Gorges shiplock is closed for inspection, China News Service (Zhongguo xinwen she) reports.
Three Gorges: Lessons from Sanmenx
(February 12, 2004) The problems that beset the Sanmenxia dam ‘will undoubtedly afflict the Three Gorges,’ a writer concludes in this excerpt from Dai Qing’s 1998 book, The River Dragon Has Come!
Zhang Guangdou’s interview on Beijing TV
(February 4, 2004) Prof. Zhang reflects on the courage of his late colleague Huang Wanli: ‘It’s not easy for all of us to speak out the way he did, is it?’
Accident plunges dam area into the dark: report
(January 16, 2004) Villages near the Three Gorges dam were plunged into darkness after a transmission tower was toppled in a construction accident last week, the Anhui-based Jianghuai Morning Post (Jianghuai chenbao) reports.
Expert who refused to sign off on Three Gorges
(January 9, 2004) Journalist Dai Qing interviews Guo Laixi, an eminent geographer who took part in the Chinese feasibility study for the Three Gorges dam but became so alarmed about the project’s potential impacts that he refused to sign the study team’s final report.
Dam on dangerous ground
(December 18, 2003) Two civil engineering professors at Wuhan University believe that earthquakes in the Three Gorges reservoir area are a real cause for concern, and call for more resources to be put into investigating the region’s seismic problems.
Southbound shiplock closes for two-week inspection
The Three Gorges shiplock is closing in one direction on Dec. 10 for an inspection that will disrupt navigation through the dam for two weeks, China News Service (Zhongguo xinwen she) reports.
Laws needed to protect dam from attack: magazine
As political tensions escalated this week across the Taiwan Strait, a Beijing magazine urged the central government to pass tough new laws to help prevent military attacks on the Three Gorges dam.
More change at the helm of the Three Gorges project
Lu Youmei is stepping down as general manager of the Three Gorges Project Development Corporation, China News Service (Zhongguo xinwen she) reports.
Magazine highlights terrorist danger to the dam
Security officials are taking steps to counter the possibility of a terrorist attack on the Three Gorges dam involving the large boats that are now able to navigate that section of the Yangtze, a new Shanghai-based news weekly says.
Top officials sacked in Three Gorges project shakeup
Two top officials overseeing the Three Gorges project have been removed from their posts, Xinhua news agency reported this week without explanation.
New newspaper probes resettlement-budget shambles
(November 21, 2003) Xiong Deming became a media star in China recently after the Premier himself suddenly appeared in her village and pledged to help her husband collect back-pay owing from a local contractor.
Giant tree roots cause big trouble in the reservoir
Yangtze boat operators who have been helping to clear debris from the Three Gorges reservoir say they are shocked by how much floating garbage has suddenly appeared since the water level was raised an additional four metres last month.
Three Gorges shiplift resurfaces
After almost half a century of study, a decision on the design of the world’s biggest shiplift at the biggest dam has been made, the Three Gorges Project Daily (Sanxia gongcheng bao) reports.
Construction of the Three Gorges shiplift, which will be the largest in the world both in terms of height and hoisting capacity, is scheduled to start in 2005 and be completed in 2009, the newspaper said.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
Other News Sources
Probe International 