The last section of a cofferdam built to facilitate construction of the Three Gorges Project from the southern bank of the Yangtze will be blasted away in seconds after 3:00 p.m. Wednesday.

Preparatory work for blowing up this section of the cofferdam downstream the Three Gorges Dam has completed, sources with the Three Gorges Headquarters with China Gezhouba (Group) Corporation, executor of the mission, said Tuesday.

An engineer in charge of the explosion task told Xinhua that they had made 482 holes in the 447.45-meter-long downstream cofferdam and would use 20.5 tons of emulsified explosives, plus 3,896 detonators, to dismantle the temporary protective structure from the upper part.

Civil engineering for downstream power generator workshops on the southern bank of the Yangtze was completed early this year, and a special panel in charge of quality control of the State Council approved the plan for dismantling the cofferdam after having made on-the-spot investigation into the construction site of the Three Gorges Project.

"The earth-and-stone work to be dismantled will total 20,000 cubic meters and the entire explosion will last for 12.36 seconds, " said the engineer.

A concrete cofferdam, with a length of 580 meters, was built between November 2002 and early 2003 to block the open-cut water channel that was used for carrying vessels after the Yangtze River was dammed in 1997 for the Three Gorges Project.

Situated on the upper reaches of the Yangtze, the country's longest river, the Three Gorges Project began construction in 1993. It consists of a big dam and at least 26 power generating units.

Fourteen of the power generators have been installed on the northern bank of the river, the others will be installed on the southern bank of the river.

The 26 generating units with a combined capacity of 18.2 million kilowatts will go into full operation upon completion of the Three Gorges Project in 2009.

Source: Xinhua