According to the Chongqing relocation department on Tuesday, these farmers are all inhabitants of the planned Chongqing section of the gigantic Three Gorges reservoir.

They will be moved to east China's Shanghai municipality, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces, south China's Guangdong province, central Hubei and Hunan provinces and southwestern Sichuan province, all places with previous experience of receiving displaced migrants.

In the past three years, these regions have received some 72,000 farmers from Chongqing, helping pave the way for the timely storing of water in the reservoir on June 1.

The construction of the gargantuan Three Gorges Project, which is scheduled to be completed by 2009, requires the relocation of a total one million people, of which so far over 700,000 have been resettled.

(People's Daily June 4, 2003)