CHINA’S GROWING thirst for water is driving the biggest mass relocation since the advent of the Three Gorges Dam, with 440,000 people moving to make way for one of the biggest irrigation schemes in history.
The new system of canals will channel water from the mighty Yangtze to drought-prone Beijing.
As an advance party of 499 villagers began the move from their homes near Wuhan in Hubei province, state-sponsored drummers played to raise their spirits.
By the end of September, 60,000 people will have left the area. The remainder will be relocated by 2014, to make way for what is known as the South-North Water Diversion Project.
“I am surprised nobody cried when the coaches left our village. Last night, we felt sorrow when the whole village gathered to have our last dinner in our hometown together,” a villager surnamed Wang told Xinhua upon leaving Danjiankou, which by 2014 will be under 170 metres of water.
The project is designed to take water from China’s largest river to satisfy demand in north China’s drought-prone megacities, including Beijing and Tianjin.
North China has only 20 per cent of the country’s water, but 64 per cent of all arable land. At least 440,000 residents will be relocated to make way for the first stage of the project’s eastern and central routes.
The last time China moved so many people was during the building of the €18 billion Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze, the world’s largest hydroelectric project, in the late 1990s.
Then, 1.4 million people were forced to move as their villages were submerged.