Senior officials in charge of preventing land disasters in the Three Gorges area announced on 15 June that they would start large-scale land inspection before the onset of the flood season.

The length of both river banks in the Three Gorges reservoir totals more than 5,300km. The reservoir’s water level steadily increased to nearly 175 metres between the end of 2008 and the end of 2009. During that 12-month period, 132 incidents occurred along the banks, including cracks and landslides. Ninety-seven sections of the river bank totalling 3.3km collapsed and the landslides contained some 200m cubic metres of rock and earth. More than 2,000 local residents had to be evacuated.

Liu Yuan, in charge of The Three Gorges Land Disaster Prevention Commission, said that the raising of the water level to 175 metres had exerted unprecedented pressure on the land. About 46,000 people have been relocated from 480 disaster spots; 5,386 known trouble-spots are being monitored by thousands of people. Relocating local residents has proved challenging as they are each given a one-off settlement fee of Rmb40,000, which many regard as inadequate. Officials are calling on the central government to put in more resources to monitor trouble spots and administer the displacement of affected residents.