China has employed the most advanced building equipment and the
best construction workers to ensure both the longevity and high
standard of safety of the colossal Three Gorges Project, said
senior engineers in charge of the project.
Zhang Chaoran, chief engineer of the China Yangtze River Three
Gorges Project Development Corporation, said the project had
enlisted China's foremost construction team, the world's most
advanced equipment and the latest technology.
The safety of a dam is decided by the quality of concrete used,
said the engineer, adding that the concrete used in the Three
Gorges Project was at least 10 times better than that used to build
ordinary dams.
Domestic and foreign experts have also been invited to supervise
the extraordinary project. The latest conclusions of a committee of
renowned Chinese scientists, reported that the general quality of
the project was good and satisfied design requirements.
Li
Haibo, a senior engineer in charge of concrete testing at the dam
site, said the construction company had taken effective measures to
guarantee the high quality of the project.
"We have construction material of world-class quality," said Li, of
the Testing Centre of the Gezhouba Group, a leading construction
company in damming and hydropower .
He
said the 185-metre high concrete dam is comprised of granite of an
enduring and unyielding quality, cement and high grade fly ash.
"The hard igneous rock, as the bone material of the dam, can be
easily obtained near the dam site, and I can say it's among the
world's highest quality rock," said Li.
Li
also boasted of the round-the-clock, quality supervision that had
been a feature of the dam construction work.
"Starting from raw material selection, to material mixing and
sub-project completion, we are supervising the process," said
Li.
Since 1998, when the second phase of the massive project started,
about 50,000 concrete sampling tests have been conducted by Li's
centre. "Nearly all of them have met the requirements. Compared
with 160 dam concrete proportions worldwide, ours is taking the
lead," he said.
Li
said his sense of responsibility was born out of a love for his
country.
"This is a project which is aimed at benefiting the nation and I'm
proud to participate in it, he remarked," adding that he believed
flood-control was the project's main benefit.
Scrupulous supervision of the Three Gorges Project was also a
paramount requirement of China's leadership.
Recently, Premier Zhu Rongji urged those tasked with constructing
the dam to spare no effort in guaranteeing the quality of the
project, by even stricter supervision of the building process.
(China
Daily November 7, 2002)