Mass migration from Hubei

• Source: Global Times
• [01:32 May 31 2010]
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Builders work on homes in Xiangfan, Hubei Province that will accommodate villagers from nearby Danjiangkou. About 80,000 people from Danjiangkou are expected to move into the new homes in order to make way for a water diversion project. Photo: Zou Le

By Zou Le

A massive relocation of about 80,000 people will begin early next month in Hubei Province to make way for the nation's South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

Within two months, residents living around the Danjiangkou reservoir will be relocated to 194 scattered locations in seven cities across the province, the local immigration office said.

The reservoir is the water source for the central route of the diversion project.

"We set a deadline because the new school semester as well as the farm harvest starts by September," said Yang Zhiyong, chief of the immigration office in Xiangfan, the city that will host one third of the migrants.

The province relocated more than 10,000 people during a trial period last year.

Xu Tengfang, vice director of the provincial immigration office, said relocation is not an easy task, even though the government has offered favorable incentives to move, including farmland twice the size of land the farmers previously used to grow crops.

"People have a deep attachment to their old homes where many generations have lived," Xu said.

Wang Li, a resident of Yuanheguan village in Danjiangkou, whose family will be relo-cated to a new home 300 kilometers away, said his family opposed the idea from the beginning.

"My parents can't grow tangerines in the new place and that's the sole source of their income," Wang said.