Title: Thousands being moved from China's Three Gorges - again | Reuters
Headings: Thousands being moved from China's Three Gorges - again
Thousands being moved from China's Three Gorges - again
RECONSTRUCTION

Content: In a sign of how sensitive the fresh relocations are, plainclothes security men and people who identified themselves as officials from the “news department” followed Reuters reporters around the area for three days, hindering interviews by intimidating locals with their presence. Since word of the new resettlement has filtered out, Shuai and her neighbors have become known in China as “Three Gorges’ immigrants, once again”. They were moved to Huangtupo in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the reservoir began to consume their original town. Besides 20,000 people in Huangtupo, another 100,000 may be moved in the next three to five years because of geological risks, Liu Yuan, an official with the Ministry of Land and Resources in Beijing said in April, according to state-run China National Radio. The number of “geological hazards” had risen 70 percent since water levels in the reservoir reached a maximum of 175 meters (574 ft), he said, without elaborating, although he was believed to be referring to landslides. Liu could not be reached for comment. Landslides in Huangtupo had been exacerbated by changes in water levels in the reservoir, said Fan Xiao, a geologist for a government-linked institute in southwestern Sichuan province, who studied conditions there in 2006. Dam officials lower water levels by as much as 30 meters during the summer in anticipation of floods, and raise them in winter. The change softens the slopes along its banks, Fan said. “It’s like a person who’s standing in place, if you push and pull him, he’ll definitely not be as stable as before,” he said.