The Chinese government has decided to pool some 4 billion yuan of funds for treating geologic hazards at the Three Gorges in the next three years to ensure the safety of the world's biggest water conservation project being built at the region.
The money will be drawn from a special fund set up for the construction of the Three Gorges Hydropower Project.
The treatment of geologic hazards, especially landslides at the riverbanks, has been considered an important part of the whole project, which has drawn great concerns from the central government.
Premier Zhu Rongji recently made a remark on the significance of the hazard treatment stressing that it is a crucial project, which concerns the safety of local people's life and property as well as the benefits of their posterity.
A report made by the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee in July suggested that there are all together 1,302 hazard-prone areas in the dam area.
Among them, the Yichang section of the river in central China's Hubei Province has 202 areas involving a total coverage of 23.1 square kilometers or 510 million cubic meters of earthwork.
(Xinhua 08/20/2001)
