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Anger grows as dam waters rise

Two girls under an umbrella have a final look of their hometown at the Three Gorges project site on Saturday, a day before the Three Gorges reservoir officially begins its water storage. PHOTO: AP

Tears welled in the eyes of Xie Xingbi as she listened to a radio broadcast the closing of the gates of the Three Gorges dam, beginning the inundation of land her ancestors had lived in for centuries.

The 47-year-old was nowhere near the site of the US$25 billion hydroelectric plant in central China, but 1,600km east on an island off Shanghai, where the government forcibly relocated her and her family three years ago.

"I guess there's no going home now," Xie said. "I suppose we're here for life."

Yesterday, sluice gates of the dam at Yichang in the central province of Hebei were shut, feeding a 600km reservoir that will ultimately drown 29 million square metres of land.

Xie is one of more than a million people along the Yangtze River ordered to pack their bags and set off for new homes as work continues on the massive dam project, a scheme which has worried environmentalists, economists and social scientists.

"Who cares about us? We've just been abandoned here," her 21-year-old daughter Ke Chunyan said, standing in a room decorated with just a ladder and part of a bed. "We didn't even know they were going to close the gate today."

China's propaganda machine has gone into overdrive to publicize the benefits of the dam, claiming it will tame the annual floods on the Yangtze and generate enormous quantities of electricity.

But relocated villagers like Sha Yunqiang are not convinced.

They complain of a lack of jobs and poor infrastructure in their new homes, and that funds promised to make their move easier have never materialized.

"I've no income to speak of here," said Sha, who like other migrants in the village is from Yunyang county in Chongqing.

Sha said he was a successful farmer back home, earning 1,000 yuan (US$120.8) a month. Now he ekes out a living on a few mu (thousands of metres) of land in front of his house.

Unfriendly locals on Chongming Island have made the relocation even more stressful, they say. Local people say the Chongqing natives are dirty, and resent their presence.

"They get all the good jobs, big houses and subsidies from the government," said 49-year-old Chen Desheng, who was born on the island. "They're the lucky ones and they still complain."

Standing in her neighbor's house listening to the radio -- their black and white television at home only able to pick up the island's single station -- Xie feels far from lucky.

"My daughter's supposed to go to university this year," the weather-beaten woman said. "There's no way I can afford the tuition fees."

Letters of complaint to the government about the migrants' difficult circumstances are met with short, curt acknowledgments.

"We were cheated into coming here," said Sha. "Now we're stuck with no way out."
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