People in Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province, who have had to store drinking water in pots, jars, basins and barrels for years, since Friday have had new access to drinkable water diverted from the Yellow River.

With the press of a button at the control center in Taiyuan, water from Wangjiazhai on the Yellow River ran into thousands of households in the city through 160 km of tunnels.

Shanxi, a water-short and arid province, is the largest coal producer and one of the major electricity bases in China and therefore consumes large quantities of water.

People in the province have long been troubled by water shortages with the per capita water resources in some cities decreasing to 25 liters daily, about one-third of the figure in arid Beijing. In cities like Taiyuan, Shuozhou and Datong water was once provided at fixed times because of the shortage of water.

Water shortages have forced the industrial and mining enterprises in big cities to stop or limit their production, causing the direct economic losses of 5.5 billion yuan (US$663 million) and indirect losses of 13.8 billion yuan (US$1.66 billion) each year, according to Shanxi Provincial Water Resources Committee.

The project to divert water from the Yellow River at Wanjiazhai is China's third biggest water project, outsized by the Three Gorges and Xiaolangdi water projects only. It is expected that 120 million cubic meters of Yellow River water will be diverted to Shanxi when the whole project is completed.

Dubbed as "the world's No. 1 underground river," the project has required the digging of about 300 kilometers of tunnels since its construction began 1993.

To channel water to Taiyuan alone has meant the construction of 25 tunnels totaling 162 kilometers.

To provide river water for three major cities in the province, Taiyuan, Shuozhou and Datong, pumping stations at five levels had to be built to gradually raise water from the Yellow River to a height of 636 meters, 184 meters higher than the twin skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

With the first phase of the project completed and now diverting Yellow River water to Taiyuan, the second phase to divert water to drought-hit Datong and Shuozhou is accelerating.

(Xinhua News Agency October 20, 2002)