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On the riverbanks figures moved franticly between trucks piled with bricks, windows, doors - anything useable for recycling. Above, the air was hazy brown and gray from smoke. Garbage hung from treetops - those that remained standing. A gigantic area was covered in rat poison. Meawhile, onboard the boat, local passengers spat sunflower seeds on the floor while watching ultra-violence karate videos on a dusty TV in the corner.
"SERVE THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT" read a massive greeting at the port of Chôngqing, now the largest municipality in China with more than 30 million residents. This special municipality suddenly started growing a few years ago when the Three Gorges Dam was being developed further down the river.
China, taking a further jump into modernity, is constructing the world´s largest hydro electric powerplant. When completed in 2009, after 17 years of construction, the expected annual power output will be equivalent to 18 large nuclear powerplants. Some 250.000 workers are involved in the project. Several hundred cities and villages along the river are being blasted or dismanteled piece by piece and relocated on higher ground. Possibly 1,9 million will have to leave their homes. An unknown number of archealogical sites will get washed away forever. The third longest river in the world will soon make the world´s largest manmade water reservoir the size of Singapore upstream from one of the world`s most densly populated areas.
Dizzy from bizarre sights and sounds I went to sleep at nights in partly evacuated hotels with disconnected electricity. Next door, walls were being knocked down to the dream of rising water.
Vegar Moen 2003
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