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November 5, 2007

China's Three Gorges Dam Problems Escalate

Lots of people predicted this would happen because of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, but it still makes horrific reading:

[1.4-million people have already been evacuated because of the dam, and now] the Chinese government says it plans to induce as many as four million more people to move from homes near the shore and in the surrounding mountains.

...The plan comes along with an extraordinary government acknowledgment: Its $25 billion engineering marvel, built to protect the riverside population from frequent deadly floods as well as provide electricity, threatens many of the rural residents it was intended to help. The dam has caused such ecological damage that in September, Beijing officials warned drastic measures were needed to avert an environmental "catastrophe."

A related factoid of how unstable the site remains, landslides around the reservoir have been producing waves as high as 50 metres. Astounding stuff. Time to short some Chinese construction companies.

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