China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest water control project, opened for its second visitor  season on Wednesday, but the number of visitors is being restricted to 1,000 per day with each person being permitted a maximum visit time of 20 minutes.

 

The restrictions were put in place to guarantee the safety of tourists walking on top of the 185-meter high dam, the Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Tourism Development Company said in statement.  

 

Canned drinks, video cameras and umbrellas have been banned from the visitor attraction and tourists will be given security checks before crossing the five-meter-wide and 100-meter-long walkway from the northern bank.

 

The dam, situated near Yichang city, in western Hubei Province, first opened to tourists from July to September last year when the Yangtze, China's longest waterway, was in spate making a spectacular scene from above.

 

But this year's tourist season started earlier as workers race to complete the major part of the dam by May and tourist companies attempt to maximize the site's potential.

 

Work on the dam started in 1993 and the site has been visited by five million tourists since 1997. Scheduled for completion and operation in 2009 the huge dam will comprise 26 turbo-generators with a combined generating capacity of 18.2 million kilowatts.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2006)