Collision kills 1, injured 35 migrants
By Liang Chao & Qin Jize (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-08-27 02:15

A bus carrying 41 migrants from the Three Gorges reservoir areas slammed into a truck in the city of Nanchong in Southwest China's Sichuan Province Thursday, leaving one dead and 35 injured.

The crash happened at 8 am as 147 rural residents to be resettled from Kaixian County in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality were travelling in four buses.

They were about 10 kilometers from their destination, Suining County in Sichuan Province, when the last of the four buses collided with a truck.

One passenger was killed on the spot and 10 were seriously injured.

The victims were hurried to the local hospital.

The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

This is the first accident involving the government's relocation project which started in 1999, said Qi Lin, deputy director of the State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee.

"I am really distressed about the tragedy," he said, "this is almost the end of the relocation programme."

This is the last year the government is arranging relocation trips.

Some 23,000 people from the Chongqing section of the Three Gorges reservoir areas were to be relocated. This was the last batch.

The residents were divided into three groups and taken to different provinces: East China's Anhui and Jiangxi provinces and Sichuan Province, where the accident took place.

The other two groups are scheduled to arrive at their destinations today and Saturday.

The buses were escorted by the government officials and had a police car guiding them.

An expert said local official slacked experience arranging such trips. That lack of experience may have been a factor in the accident.

A total of 1.2 million people have to be displaced to make way for the world's largest hydraulic project, which is due to be completed in 2009.

Many only need to move to adjacent highlands and will not have to leave their home towns, while some of them have to relocate far away to other provinces.

Since 1999, a total of 165,000 people from Chongqing and Central China's Hubei Province have been relocated to 11 comparatively well-developed regions, most of which are coastal areas.

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