China to relocate 300,000 more people for Three Gorges dam

China has announced it will relocate around 300,000 more people than planned to make way for the Three Gorges dam, bringing the total number to over 1.4 million.

China had expected to resettle 1.13 million people but that figure has already been surpassed, well before the project goes into full operation in 2008, the official Xinhua news agency said in a report late on Sunday night.

The number of people forced to leave their homes is expected to top 1.4 million people, Xinhua cited the head of the central government's Three Gorges Project Construction Committee, Pu Haiqing, as saying.

The Three Gorges Dam, in central China's Hubei province, is the world's biggest hydropower project and was built at a cost of over $US22 billion.

It dams the nation's longest river, the Yangtze, and while the Chinese Government has hailed it as a solution to a series of national problems, the project has drawn fire from environmental and social critics.

Questions have been raised over the impact on people forced to leave their homes, especially amid reports of corruption among officials responsible for distributing compensation money to those evicted.

The dam's main 2,309-metre-long, 185-meter-high block of concrete was put into place in May this year, marking the end of 13 years of construction.

It will become fully operational in 2008, with more power generators still to be installed and work done on the ship lift that will allow ocean-going vessels to go far inland along the vast reservoir filling up behind the dam.

The water level in the reservoir has yet to reach its peak of 175 metres.

Those still to be relocated will do so as the water level rises, Xinhua cited Mr Pu as saying.

China says the dam is essential as a source of hydropower and to stop the flooding along the Yangtze that has killed countless people and destroyed farming fields for centuries.

- AFP