Word: xiaoshaba
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Public discussion or not, work along the Nu is moving ahead. Xiaoshaba, a riverside village of 120 families just a few miles upstream from the regional capital of Liuku, has been leveled and its residents relocated to higher ground. The project was officially carried out under the national "New Socialist Countryside" program. Villagers were compensated for the loss of fields that will be flooded. Earth movers, laborers and survey teams from the Sinohydro company, a member of the consortium that wants to dam the river, crawl over the site...
Sixty miles downstream other crews are at work on a bridge and dam foundation at Saige, which along with Xiaoshaba are the two sites mentioned in the develoment and reform commission's five-year plan. While signs say the Saige work is for a transportation project, a surveyor standing on the roadside by the site readily admits they are building a hydropower dam. (The Nu prefecture government and the Yunan provincial government did not respond to requests for comment...
Just how much a hydropower boom will help is uncertain. The steepness of the hillsides along the Nu mean that much of the valuable farmland abuts the river and will be flooded by dams. The new residences for the Xiaoshaba residents looks more like a middle-income Hong Kong housing estate than a rural Chinese village. But despite the exterior improvements, villagers are upset that they can no longer raise livestock outside their homes. One former resident of the now-demolished village says his family lost valuable cropland and the payment offered by the government is not enough to compensate...
| 1 |