Criticism flows at Three Gorges Dam

China’s worst drought in half a century has accomplished what years of criticism and environmental activism could not: It has caused the Chinese government to admit that mistakes were made with its star construction project, the Three Gorges Dam.

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China has admitted that its showcase Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, has caused a slew of urgent environmental, geologic and economic problems.

Cheng Min / AP

The dam is on the Yangtze River in Yichang, Hubei province. The project provides benefits to the Chinese people, but it has created myriad urgent problems, from the relocation of more than a million residents to risks of geological disasters, the Chinese government said Thursday. The statement from China's State Council marked a rare acknowledgment of the issues that have shadowed the world's largest dam, an engineering feat designed to tame the Yangtze River, which snakes from the Tibetan plateau to Shanghai.

/ Reuters

Trucks dump rocks to complete the final damming of the diversion channel of the Yangtze River at the Three Gorges Dam project in 2002.

/ AP

Workers celebrate after closing a gap along the Three Gorges Dam in 2002.

/ Reuters

A view of a makeshift dam after workers finished blocking the Yangtze River at the Three Gorges site in 2002.

/ Reuters

A fisherman tries to paddle his boat through a small stream amid the partially dried-up Honghu Lake in Honghu, Hubei province, on May 20, 2011. The Yangtze River, China's longest, has been plagued by a severe drought, with the lowest level of rainfall this year since 1961.

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A view of the dried-up bank of the Yangtze River in southwest China's Chongqing municipality. Historically low water levels have forced authorities to halt shipping on the nation's longest waterway.

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Chinese farmers dig a new well at their farm in Huangpi, in central China's Hubei province, May 9, 2011. The drought plaguing central China for months has left more than 1 million people without proper drinking water and has crimped output of hydroelectric power, China's second-biggest energy source, as water levels at nearly 1,400 reservoirs in Hubei province have fallen below the operational level.

/ AFP/Getty Images

Farmers carry buckets of water along a dried-up field in Huangpi.

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Workers at Three Gorges in 2002.

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The last cofferdam protecting the just-completed main wall of Three Gorges Dam is blown up in 2006.

Liu Chan / AP

A worker looks at water gushing from open sluice gates at the Three Gorges Dam in 2004.

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A worker at Three Gorges in 2006. Construction of the dam's 7,620-foot-long, 606-foot-high main wall was completed nine months ahead of schedule. The world's biggest hydroelectric project was a $22 billion undertaking.

Ng Han Guan / AP

A view of the dam in 2010.

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Water gushes from more than 20 open sluice gates in 2004. Three Gorges Dam survived intact when the largest flood peak since 1998 passed without incident.

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Cargo vessels navigate the dam's ship lock in 2007.

Du Huaju / AP

A worker carries rocks near Three Gorges in 2007, a time when the slopes of Chenjialing Village shuddered and groaned, cracking and warping homes and fields, making residents fear that the banks around the dam hold deadly perils.

David Gray / Reuters

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