In China, cracks are appearing – in the neighbourhood of the massive Three Gorges Dam,
the country’s great prestige project, and also in the Great Internet Firewall of China, enabling the ominous news to leak out.
Three years ago stories were already emerging in the Chinese media about landslides, ecological deterioration and accumulation of algae further down the river.
And less and less effort seems to be made to plug the leaks.
Recent media reports tell of a series of landslips, minor earthquakes and cracks appearing in roads and buildings along the central section of the Yangtse, between the dam and the city of Chongqing.
Almost 10,000 “dangerous sites” have been identified, but many of the people living near them cannot be relocated for lack of money.