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China to relocate 330,000 for water diversion project

AP

A motorist passes by a signboard that promises safe water for the people on display near a water canal link to the South-to-North Water Diversion Project located in Zhengzhou, Henan province, China on 19 January 2009. In China’s latest grand attempt to reroute nature, three canals will bring water hundreds of kilometres to Beijing and other thirsty cities in the north. More than 330,000 people in the way will be forced to move.File photo/AP/Andy Wong/China

Authorities have started resettling 330,000 people in central China to make way for a massive project to divert water hundreds of kilometers to the booming cities in its arid north, a report said Sunday.

The estimated $62 billion water diversion could be nearly three times as expensive as the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric project.

When completed, the project’s three routes will move billions of tons of water from China’s central, southern and western regions through pipes and canals to Beijing and other fast-growing northern cities.

The central route, due for completion by 2014, is expected to supply about a quarter of Beijing’s water.

But critics have warned the water diversion will cause environmental damage and still not quench the boomtowns’ thirst.

People in Hubei and Henan provinces are being relocated from their homes near the Danjiangkou reservoir, where a sluice will be built to divert water from the Yangtze river and its tributaries, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The resettlement will be completed in 2011, Xinhua said, citing Henan provincial authorities.

Each relocated family will be compensated for losses in immovable property and be allocated arable land in their new villages and an annual subsidy of 600 yuan ($88) per person for 20 years, Xinhua said.

Earlier this year, some of the villagers said officials had forced them to sign an agreement to relocate, and that officials were offering less than half the land the farmers currently use.

The Three Gorges Dam forced more than 1.4 million people to move, their villages flooded by a 660-kilometre (410-mile) long reservoir that the dam created on the middle Yangtze.

Copyright © 2009 AP

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