Builders to hold simple celebration for completion of world's largest dam

Builders of the world's largest hydropower project at the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River will hold a simple celebration for the completion of concrete placement of the mammoth dam on Saturday afternoon.

Traditional Chinese celebration necessities such as firecrackers, slogan scrolls and colored banners worth only a few hundred yuan have been prepared at the construction site, where 30 workers on night shift are still placing the last amount of some 400 cubic meters of concrete to top off the 2,309-meter-long, 185-meter-high dam on Friday night.

The completion of the world's largest concrete dam deserves a grand gathering, however, China Yangtze River Three Gorges Development Corp, developer of the project, gave up a one million- yuan-worth celebration plan.

"Although construction of the dam's main wall is to be done soon, the earthwork for building affiliated parts and the equipment installation of the hydropower project will continue till the end of the year 2008," said Li Yong'an, general manager of the corporation.

Li told Xinhua that the completion of the dam building marks only a phased progress and there are still lots of difficult works to do, such as resettlement and environmental protection and construction.

The Three Gorges project has been under construction for 12 years at the cost of 126 billion yuan (16 billion U.S. dollars) till now.

Source: Xinhua