China completed construction on Saturday of the controversial Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectricity project, and marked the occasion with a subdued ceremony broadcast live on state television.
A brass band played and confetti rained over the site after workers poured the last batch of concrete.
No top officials attended the event, in contrast to the launch of work on the dam in 1997, for which then-President Jiang Zemin and then-Premier Li Peng were both present.
Officials stressed that although construction of the dam’s main span was now complete, there was still a long way to go until the entire project would be finished.
“Although the dam is now complete, we still have a long way to go and cannot become self-satisfied or relax our efforts in the least,” Li Yongan, general manager of the Three Gorges Project Development Corp., said at the ceremony.
“We need to continue to put quality and safety first,” Li said.
‘Debt of gratitude’
The official China Daily in an editorial called for people to remember the more than 100 people who died during the dam’s construction, as well as the 1.3 million people facing relocation to make way for the dam’s reservoir.
“The best possible way to repay such a debt of gratitude is to make sure the highest safety and quality standards are observed up till the very end of the entire building process,” the editorial said.
The $25 billion project has been criticized for its environmental impact and its affect on so many people.
The entire project is set to be completed in 2009, when the reservoir will reach its full level and its 26 turbines will all come online, bringing its total power generating capacity to 18 gigawatts.
The dam, which authorities say will tame flooding on the Yangtze River, is 607 feet tall and 7,575 feet long. It and its attached locks have consumed 35 million cubic yards of concrete.