Guo Shuyan, vice-chairman of the State Council's Three Gorges Project Construction Committee, said: "Since terrorist attacks occur frequently in the world nowadays, we are preparing countermeasures in the reservoir area."

However, Guo said he was confident that no terrorist attack could totally destroy the dam and reservoir because of the huge size and strength of the structure. The dam is 2,309 meters long and 185 meters high, while the reservoir can hold 39.3 billion cubic meters of water.

"With the measures, we will be able to defeat any kind of terrorist attack," Guo told a Beijing press conference organized by the State Council Information Office.

The committee is considering conducting safety checks on all ships and boats passing through the ship lock, which will be put into use next Monday.

A senior expert on water conservation also said that the dam is safe and strong enough to withstand any attack, even though 80 fissures each about the width of a human hair have found in the dam.

"We have carefully repaired the 80 fissures, and the gigantic Three Gorges Reservoir dam poses no danger," said Pan Jiazheng, the chief expert with the project's examination group sent by the central government.

Thursday was the first time that an authoritative source had publicly announced the number of fissures.

"The fissures indicate that we need to make further improvements during the (remaining) construction work, but generally the dam is safe enough and has met the design requirements," said Pan.

The fissures in the dam concrete were found by a team of experts sent by the State Council during an inspection on May 20.

The team, made up of renowned Chinese scientists, reported that the project's general quality was good and had come up to the design requirements.

Pan said China has employed the most advanced construction equipment and the best construction workers to ensure both the longevity and high safety standards of the colossal dam.

In terms of the reservoir's water quality, Guo said that 39.3 billion yuan (US$4.75 billion) has been set aside for water-pollution prevention and control and environmental protection at the Three Gorges reservoir and in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

Guo said: "We have done a lot during the clean-up period."

He admitted that, before the dam began to store water, a tomb in which several corpses carrying the virus of anthrax buried was found in Fengjie County in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, upstream of the dam.

According to local official records, the people in the tomb contracted the virus in 1942 and were buried together after their deaths.

"We have taken comprehensive action to burn them, and experts have inspected the site and the area around it and found no such virus," said Guo.

Work began on the Three Gorges dam project a decade ago and it is due to be completed in 2009.

At a significant cost, more than 200 sewage and waste-treatment plants or landfill sites will be built in the reservoir area and the upper reaches of the Yangtze by 2010 to cope with pollution, said Guo.

"An official survey recently found that the water quality in the river is better than before and we are trying to make obvious progress in quality control over the next two years," Guo added.

(China Daily June 13, 2003)