Ancient town facing submersion as company criticized for lax protection ( 2003-08-18 14:03) (Agencies)
1,700-year-old town might face submersion in southwest China's Chongqing
Municipality as archeologists criticizing a hydropower plant construction
company of being too slow to protect the ancient town.
Archeologists said a great number of cultural relics at Gongtan Town of
Youyang Tujia-Miao Autonomous County would be destroyed by the construction of
the Pengshui Hydropower Plant on the Wujiang River because they did not have
enough time to carry out protection work as the project begins within
months.
Datang Pengshui Hydropower Plant, the company under fire, was too slow to
inform them in advance of that Gongtan had been a pivot linking central and
southwest China for centuries, the archeologists said.
"We can't carry out our excavation and protection work without the
certificate of entrustment from the construction company," said Lin Bizhong,
deputy head of an archeological team from the Chongqing municipal institute of
cultural relics.
Lin said they were kept in the dark until May when the construction company
asked the Chongqing municipal cultural bureau to reassess a cultural relics
report in the area to be flooded.
He said the report published in the late 1980s did not meet the requirements
of cultural relics protection in the area because it was too old.
However, Wang Haisheng, a spokesman for the construction company, said the
company had attached great importance to protect cultural relics in the areas
and the responsibility lay with local government.
Wang said local government should take charge of cultural relics
investigation and protection in the areas facing submersion by serving as a
go-between for construction company and archeologists.
Gongtan is listed as the top ancient and cultural town in Chongqing, the
biggest city in west China, for its vast number of cultural relics, including
its ancient houses built on slopes which are supported by wooden columns.
The protection of cultural relics has long remained the focus of major water
projects in China, among which the most famous is the Three Gorges Project.
The hydropower plant, with an investment of 10 billion yuan ( about 1.2
billion US dollars), will begin construction late this year and is expected to
ease the power shortage in Chongqing when it is completed in
2007.
