Affected People

Originally published in the WSJ Blog China Real Time Report Environmental advocacy group International Rivers gives a mixed grade to China's biggest resettlement project since at least 1.2 million people were moved to make way for the Three Gorges reservoir. Some 330,000 people are being relocated to expand the Danjiangkou Reservoir in central China's Hubei province as part of a massive and controversial project to divert water from southern China along three canals to the north. The South-to-North Water Transfer Project is estimated to cost $62 billion - far more than even the Three

The $62 billion South-North Water Transfer Project is the biggest engineering scheme in Chinese history. About 330,000 people are currently being relocated for the expansion of the Danjiangkou reservoir, which marks the beginning of the transfer project's Middle Route. International Rivers has published an eyewitness report on China's biggest ongoing resettlement project. The report finds that the Chinese government has learned lessons from the experience with the Three Gorges Dam, but that serious problems remain. Download the report in English and ChinesePhotos of Danjiangkou dam and res

Affected people with their houses plunged under the flood waters Shahid Ali Panhwer Only a few days ago, in the wake of the severe deluge upstream of Kotri Barrage, children swimming and women sponging down clothes on a partially dry passage of the Indus River (Sindhu Daryah) downstream, close to Sehrish Nagar embankment, doled out the delusion that the flood, which had flattened the upper parts of the country and engulfed vast stretches of the province's upstream areas, inflicting huge losses in terms of life and property, was centuries away from their lands. They used to live in a squatter

Rivers [said 6th century BC Taoist engineer Chia Jang] were like the mouths of infants - if one tried to stop them up they only yelled the louder or were suffocated.- Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, 1971 The devastating floods in Pakistan have once again ignited public debate on the necessity of new water reservoirs in the country. The proponents of Kalabagh Dam, including some prominent politicians, TV anchorpersons, and Punjab water engineers, hold that if Kalabagh Dam had been built, we would not be facing the present disaster wreaked upon millions of people in the Indus

Exodus in Punjab. Action Aid The floods that are currently ravaging Pakistan have created a human tragedy beyond imagination. At least 1,600 people have lost their lives, 20 million people have been affected, and 4 million people have been left homeless. Many families have lost their whole existence – their homes, fields, crops and cattle – overnight, with no safety net to fall back on. The floods have also washed away schools, health centers, roads and bridges. Pakistan's civil society and international aid agencies are doing their utmost to bring relief to the victims of this trage