The water level behind the Three Gorges dam reached 172.3 metres on 11 November at the culmination of a six-week trial storage operation. The routine trial was conducted to check that the dam, the five-tier shiplocks and 26 hydropower turbo-generators were all working satisfactorily. The developer of the project, the China Three Gorges Project Corp, confirmed that they were. Afterwards, the reservoir began to discharge water.
The reservoir’s water level is expected to reach 175 metres in 2009 when the US$22.5bn Three Gorges project is fully completed. As of June 2008, 1.24 million residents had been relocated to make way for the dam construction.