Three Gorges Dam - Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering - page 144

perspective we looked at the dam in progress, it promised to be a masterpiece of engineering, a won-
der of the modern world. Huge red Chinese characters on placards high on a hillside proclaimed,
“Build the Three Gorges, Develop the Yangtze.”
As we passed through the diversion channel and proceeded around the construction site, the new
town of Zigui was visible on our left high on the hill above, giving us a measure of the limits to
which the water would rise in the reservoir. Behind us we could see the dam from upstream, and
as it receded into the mist its immensity was dwarfed by perspective and the mountain peaks that
loomed ahead.
The fabled river is full of turns as it wends its way through the Three Gorges, with seldom a long
open stretch ahead by which to judge what is coming. This made for constantly changing views of
the river and the gorges, and thereby of our imaginings of the future reservoir. A short way upriver,
around another bend, we entered the west part of Xiling Gorge. Few members of our delegation
could have been prepared for what we saw. Travel guides, postcards, and souvenir topics had given
us previews of the scenery, but none had prepared us for the sense of insignificance we experienced
as our boat wended its way among the granite cliffs and peaks. It was some time before any of us
even picked out a single road, high up on the mountainside, looking more like a footpath than a
highway.
Stark signs planted high on the slopes marked the 135-meter elevation that the water would reach
on the first filling of the dam; others marked the 175-meter elevation, the height to which floodwa-
ters will eventually rise. These signs, the occasional bridge or tunnel (which high mountain roads
demanded), and the abandoned old town of Zigui were the few indications that a human hand had
touched this part of the world. Old Zigui was nothing but shells of colorless buildings, their win-
dowpanes and sashes removed before the coming flood. Towns like Zigui would be leveled and
many of their parts carted off before that happened, we were told, both to recycle materials and to
reduce the sources of pollution to the reservoir's water.
As we continued our journey up the Yangtze, we observed other towns in various stages of aban-
donment. Sometimes a new white town was under construction just uphill from the elevation mark-
ers. Sometimes a new town's tiled buildings glistened in the sunlight across the river from the dark-
matte surfaces of the old. The relocated people will be able to watch with mixed emotions from
their new apartments— many no doubt fitted with satellite television receivers and modern plumb-
ing—as their old town is dismantled and their old land submerged under the rising waters. How
such sights will affect them is hard to imagine.