3RD - 6TH JULY 2005

It was about an hours bus ride to our boat and our bus took us across a bridge right next to the 3 Gorges Dam, I have really mixed feelings about this dam and I have to say I don’t agree with it at all but as a feet of engineering it is incredible, it is the most massive man made thing I have ever seen, it is immense.
When its completed it will be 594ft (181m) high and 7,575 ft (2,309m) long, it will house 26 hydro turbine generators and will create a reservoir more than 410 miles long. As well as controlling floods it will also serve as a gateway for larger commercial ships to carry goods further inland and be the largest dam in the world. I have got a few photos but they really don’t show the vastness of the thing. I just worry about the safety side of things, apparently there have been cracks appearing in it already due the wrong grade of concrete being used … and its not even finished yet, and the cost to the

environment is just far too great for my liking. I know the dam is supposed to help with flood control and I can see that side to it but it just seems so wrong to relocate 1.3 million people, flood such a beautiful area and ignore the effect it will have on the wildlife. Sturgeon, Chinese alligator, Yangzi river dolphins and Siberian crane are all in grave danger with these changes in their habitats, the Chinese government has set up a wildlife park to help but the damn has been built right on the sturgeon’s (which can grow to up to 5 metres long!) migratory path, so it is no longer able to swim upstream to breed, I guess we will give have to wait and see whether it adapts to its new environment or not but I think it will encounter severe difficulty.

We boarded our boat and were helped on by the ever so helpful staff, our cruise guide Sherry was at our beck and call whenever or if ever we