108,000 to be relocated this year for Gorges dam (chinadaily.com.cn/xinhua) Updated: 2004-02-15 10:34
China plans to relocate 108,000 people this year to make way for the Three
Gorges dam project, bringing to nearly a million the total number resettled
because of the project.
Among those to be moved from their homes this year, 23,400 peasants will be
asked to settle in other parts of the country, according to a Xinhua report,
citing the Chongqing municipal government in southwest China.
The peasant families will join 800,000 others who have already been forced to
move because of the expensive project, meant to tame the Yangtze River, China's
longest.
Some have been moved as far away as east China's Zhejiang province, 1,000
kilometers from the dam. To the relocated farmers, it is like being moved to a
different country, as the Zhejiang dialect is as different from the one spoken
in Chongqing.
By the time the dam is completed in 2009, about 1.13 million people, mostly
residents of the Chongqing area, will have been moved.
The 2004 agenda also includes moving 130 industrial and mining enterprises
from areas where the enormous dam is due to be built.
Liu Fuyin, director of Chongqing municipal resettlement department, said the
municipality would build about 2.75 million square meters of houses this year
for the resettlement. The municipal government will concentrate on developing
key projects like transport, energy and water resources in the reservoir areas
to create jobs for migrants.
WESTERN HAN TOMB DISCOVERED
A huge cemetery from China's Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24) has been
discovered at the Three Gorges area's Tujing town of southwest China's Chongqing
municipality.
According to Fang Gang of the Chongqing archaeological squad, 62 burial pits
with typical Western Han patterns were found within a scope of 2000 square
meters at a large tableland alongside the Yangtze River.
The pits were orderly arranged in several rows and each row contained five to
seven tombs with almost equal space among one another. The arranging pattern and
the scale of the tombs were exactly like cemeteries today, said Fang.
Fang said that most tombs discovered were small and medium sized and the
funerary objects unearthed were chiefly pottery, together with some adornments
and weapons. Possibly it was a cemetery of civilians, said the archaeologist.
Most Han tombs discovered in this area were brick-chambered tombs and cliff
burial tombs, Fang said, and it was the first time that a Han cemetery had been
unearthed here.
The big cemetery might indicate a large-scale settlement here, said Fang, and
this would help a lot to study Chongqing's economy, culture and life patterns in
the Western Han Dynasty.
