Their arrival will bring the total number of local Three Gorges emigrants to 7,519 since the first group arrived in 2000, according to the Shanghai Three Gorges Emigrant Resettlement Office.

This latest group of 159 families from Chongqing Municipality arrived at the city's Baoyang Wharf at 6:20am Sunday after a five-day voyage along the Yangtze River.

The migrants, aged four months old to 86 years old, will be resettled in the city's suburban Nanhui and Fengxian districts, officials said.

"We are very thankful to your contribution made to the Three Gorges Project and you are guaranteed to have a new good life in Shanghai," said Mayor Han Zheng who welcomed the migrants at the wharf Sunday morning.

The 90 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion) hydroelectric facility is the world's biggest infrastructure project. Construction on the dam started in 1999.

These people are among 1.2 million farmers and rural residents who have been or will be relocated from the Three Gorges since 2000 to 11 provinces along the Yangtze River and the east China coast regions, due to the project.

As compensation for the resettlement, each family moving to the city will be given a new home - ranging in area from 120 to 180 square meters depending on the number of members, as well as a small patch of farmland for each person.

Local residence permits will also be granted to migrant families and children will get free schooling for two years, according to the migrant resettlement office.

Officials also said that about two-thirds of migrant families who arrived earlier have lived up to local living standards.

"I'm very glad to regard Shanghai as my second hometown," said Xu Jibo, 43, whose family is among the first batch of migrants to settle in the city's Chongming County. "Despite the relatively high living standards here, I'm still quite optimistic that I can overcome difficulties to build up a new family."

(Shanghai Daily August 16, 2004)