About 50,000 people living in the reservoir areas of the Three Gorges Project will migrate to other provinces and cities next year, migration department said.
Most of them will move to coastal regions such as Shanghai, Fujian, Jiangsu and Guangdong, and some of them will move to provinces in central China.
A total of 1 million people will leave their homes in the Three Gorges Project areas on the Yangtze River, where the world's biggest dam will be built in the next century.
The first 7,000 people have migrated to Shanghai and some other cities and provinces this year on a trial basis, and the massive migration will start next year, officials said.
The local government has prepared a list of the migrants' names for final approval in November of this year.
Provinces that will receive the migrants are expected to complete the construction of new houses before June next year, and the relocation will be finished by August, officials said.
Most of the migrants are rural people living in Chongqing, the largest city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. They will sign migration contracts with the government before they move.
(21dnn.com 10/13/2000)
