Li Xiangchun removes the remains of his father, who died 51 years earlier, as he leaves his village home in Dongyuemiao of Yichang, a Hubei Province prefecturelevel city, on June 1, 1993. Photos: CFP

By Yin Hang

Yang Xiangguo, 95, led his sons and grandsons – 54 in total – out of their farmland. Pan Lin, 28 days old, was too young to witness her homeland by herself, and her parents took her out of the Three Gorges area in a basket.

Xu Jibo carefully wrapped up his house number plate and selected plant seeds from his homeland and bid farewell to his land.

They were among about 1.27 million people to be relocated from 12 cities and county seats and 114 townships during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam.

The dam will raise the water level to its designed maximum – 175 meters above sea level – before the end of October. The operation started on September 15 and the water is rising about three meters a day.

As the water goes up, migrations from the Three Gorges area, which have lasted 17 years, are coming to an end. Some 160,000 residents among the 1.27 million relocated residents of the Three Gorges Dam area will migrate to provinces all over China. Some will have to change their lifestyles and habits fundamentally.

Chief of the new village

Hu Yunhong, in his 60s, is one of them. He moved from Fengjie county of Chongqing, once the center of the Three Gorges Dam area and famous for its river view in ancient Chinese poems, to Fengxin county town of Jiangxi Province.

His life in his new town started none too easy, though, as he tried hard to adjust to the new environment. Hu learnt agricultural technology by himself and then finally embraced a flourishing life with his strenuous efforts, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Lei Yangan moved from the neighboring Yunyang county in the same period to Yongxiu county in Jiangxi Province.

Lei began growing cotton and rice, raising pigs, making wine and running a rice milling shop. He became rich in his village soon and was voted as the chief of the volunteer team to help other villages get rich.

Statistics show that at least one person from 60-70 percent of the Three Gorges migrant relocation families work in the city. Twenty percent of those residents are working in the tertiary industry, said Xinhua.

Looking back on their early struggles tens of years ago, when they first landed in their new homes, they may feel especially alive right now.

Farmers in Yunyang county of Chongqing Municipality move the rich soil from the dam area to near their new homes. Photos: CFP

Worst moment

In Taipingxi in Hubei Province, the nearest town of the Three Gorges Dam, there was a relocation site that was built 50 meters above a place about which stories were published by Southern Weekend on November 17, 1997.

Unlike most residents who are able to make ends meet, Fu Chengqian might be one of the most unfortunate.

His family of 11 members was allocated an area of no less than 10 square meters on the edge of a 50-meter slope. The family had lived in their cabin for a long time.

The worst moment came when Fu's family finally gathered enough money to build a home: they discovered the ground beneath them was cracking.

As Fu witnessed house after house rise in his neighborhood, anxiety finally gave way to fear that his house might collapse even if it were ever actually built. So the family had to live in their wooden shack until they could find some way out of their predicament.

Besides Fu's wooden house was a home made of plastic sheeting in which lived Chen Mingyou and his wife.

The 61-year-old Chen was a relocation promoter and teacher at the education bureau of the town.

In a career of hard work and thrift he had earned the family nearly 12,000 yuan in savings.

With 6,000 yuan compensation, their money was not enough even to build a foundation for their house on their allocated soft land.

The old couple laid a three-meter-deep foundation, consolidated and covered it with one-meter-thick stone. Their efforts proved futile after rain created nine crevices in the foundation.

Their efforts finally paid off when they erected a wooden house frame with no windows or doors for 50,000 yuan. That's how their plastic house was built.

The old grandmother said their accrued debt could take them a lifetime to repay. And they sometimes carried the heavy wood by themselves to build the house, according to Southern Weekend.

Arduous way

It took almost half a decade for the first batch of relocation residents to get used to their new lives, supported by a spirit of never giving up and struggling arduously to rebuild their new homes.

Zhou Wusheng lost his eyesight in an accident 28 years ago when he was still a middle school boy.

Over 20 years, Zhou started up his own recycling shop step by step. When his life was just about on track, he faced another crossroads.

He was informed he must leave his home at the beginning of 2001. Qinglong village, in Wanzhou district of Chongqing Municipality, was a dam site. All of its residents would relocate to other villages.

After moving, Zhou decided not to rely on the minimum living insurance and started his own business again. Though blind as he is, he never yielded to difficulties.

Using all of his savings and money lent from his friends, he established a pigsty with the help of other villagers. His experience in raising pigs made his life better. The scale of his pigsty enlarged year by year, with a total value of about three million yuan by the end of 2006.

The world's largest hydro-electric project has almost finished, while the life of Zhou and other relocated people will go on with their changes.

A relocated farmer in his new home at Chongming Island of Shanghai. Photos: CFP

A nation in love with damming

Dam construction along the Yangtze River has cost 500 billion yuan ($73.21 billion), 30 percent of the nation's water resources investment over the last 60 years, the Xinhua News Agency said on September 24.

Water projects constructed since the establishment of New China dwarf the number of dams built in the previous 2,000 years.

Preliminary statistics reportedly show about 2,458 dams, with an installed gross capacity of 120 million kilowatts, capable of generating 292.5 billion kilowatt/hours of electricity a year, built or under construction by 2007.

Hu Jiajun, a spokesman for Yangtze River Water Resources Commission reportedly said in a press conference on September 24: "The development and exploitation of Yangtze River water resources have made a great achievement by establishing large batches of water resources projects through the 60 years of consistent development under the support of the nation's huge investment."

"The strategic structure of the country's water resources allocation has taken an initial shape."

About 15 million hectares of water-effective irrigated area were covered by constructing 46,000 reservoirs, total capacity nearing 230 billion cubic meters.

The condition of Yangtze River waterways has greatly improved with its navigable length extended more than 71,000 kilometers, about half the length of navigable waterway of the country.

"A comprehensive water resource utilization system, integrating electricity generation, irrigation, water supply and waterway navigation is formed. "The increasing utilization efficiency and raising utilization level provide strong support to the economic development of the area," Hu Jiajun reportedly said.

"The Yangtze River, therefore, become a real 'golden waterway' and will work for the well-being of its people in an new era."

The Yangtze River Water Resources Commission also announced at a press conference held the same day that flooding of the Yangtze River area this year had killed 294 people and exerted an impact on more than 53.5 million people. Flooding affected more than 736 cities and counties, causing direct economic losses of more than 32.7 billion yuan.

The complicated flooding situation this year was more serious than in previous years because of its broad impact, according to the Commission, with larger numbers of deaths and injuries, larger populations that needed to be evacuated, collapsing buildings and destroying dam projects.

Heavy rainstorms, combined with the worsening geological condition posed by last year's earthquake, made the damage suffered by Sichuan Province three times higher than all the losses of the last five years, the Commission reportedly said.

Areas of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Guizhou Province, within the watershed of Yangtze River, were hit by a heavy drought, with rainfall dropping 70-90 percent, creating a crop blight and drinking water shortage, the Commission reported.

Water from the Yangtze River even flowed back into the Dongting Lake in Hunan Province and Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, due to reduced rainfall and heavy drought.

Three Gorges Dam: fast facts

The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River in Sandouping, Yiling District, Yichang of Hubei Province. It is the world's largest hydro-electric project, and will be the largest electric plant of any kind when it is fully operational.

The body of the dam was finished in 2006. When the whole project is completed, it will contain 32 main generators, each with a capacity of 700 megawatts.

The majority of the originally planned components of the project were completed on October 30, 2008, when the 26th generator was brought into commercial operation.

Six additional generators in the underground power plant are being installed and are not expected to become fully operational until about 2011. The total electric generating capacity of the dam will then reach 22,500 megawatts.

The project produces hydroelectricity, increases the river's navigation capacity, and reduces the potential for floods downstream by providing flood storage space.

As of September 2009, the dam has generated 348.4 Terawatt hours of electricity, covering about one third of its project cost.

The dam has also flooded archaeological and cultural sites and had some 1.27 million people relocated. It may also lead to ecological disasters. The building of the dam has been a controversial topic in both China and abroad.