Thousands more shifted to make way for Three Gorges

The third phase of re-housing more than a million people displaced by China's massive Three Gorges Dam project began Saturday, state media reported.

The third phase of re-housing more than a million people displaced by China's massive Three Gorges dam project began on Saturday, state media reported.

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About 23,400 people now living in the southwestern Chongqing region are to be relocated by the end of next year to other provinces, including the eastern province of Zhejiang more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) away, Xinhua news agency said.

During the first two phases of the re-housing, 140,000 people displaced by the dam project left their ancestral homes for other parts of China.

In total, more than 700,000 people already been moved and more than 400,000 will be relocated as the water levels of the Yangtze river rise in 2006 and 2009.

From June 1-10, the Three Gorges dam, the largest in the world, closed its sluice gates for the first time, submerging 13 towns to form a lake more than 400 kilometres long.

The majority of those displaced are being moved to new towns built on higher ground and bordering the lake.

Meanwhile, the China Daily reported that the construction of high-tension lines to carry electricity from the hydroelectric dam to central and eastern China has been completed.

The dam will begin to produce electricity in August.