China's Major Water Diversion Project Makes Progress

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, November 25, 2001

China's Major Water Diversion Project Makes Progress

The diversion of the Yellow River water from 450 km away to Taiyun, a major industrial city in north China's Shanxi Province, reported major progress Saturday.

The diversion of the Yellow River water from 450 km away to Taiyun, a major industrial city in north China's Shanxi Province, reported major progress Saturday.

With Shanxi Provincial Party Secretary Tian Chengping pressing a button at a special ceremony for the occasion, Yellow River water gushed forth from Wanjiazhai on the Shanxi-Inner Mongolia border to the Fenhe Reservoir on the Fenhe River.

By the end of 2002, Yellow River water is expected to run about 100 km eastward to Taiyuan itself. Shanxi is China's major coal and power producer, and at the same time one of the driest Chinese regions. Its per capita water resources are only 17 percent of the national average and four percent of the world average. The Wanjiazhai Yellow River diversion project, one of the largest such projects in China, was kicked off in May 1993.

The project is expected to cost 12.478 billion yuan. The World Bank offered a 400 million U.S. dollar loan for the project in 1997. When completed, around 2002, it will be able to divert an annual 1.2 billion cuc m of Yellow River water to Taiyuan in the south and Datong, a coal-mining city, in the north.