Dam Project Will Uproot 1.2 Million In China By 2009

Authorities in China’s southwestern city of Chongqing plan to relocate another 337,200 people by 2000 from areas to be flooded by the Three Gorges Dam.

The resettlement of all 1.2 million people from the area should be complete by 2009, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday.

Environmentalists and human rights activists have criticized the dam because of the vast scope of its damage to the surrounding countryside, archaeological sites and the lives of evicted residents.

Some of those already moved have complained that they received inferior farmland and inadequate compensation for their homes.

Xinhua said the Chinese government spent $410 million by the end of 1996 to relocate 28,000 residents.