China's rising dam brings wrenching exodus

By Chris Buckley

BADONG, China (Reuters) - In a precarious apartment overlooking the Yangtze River, Xu Faxiu and her husband are among the hold-outs in China's wrenching campaign to move 1.4 million residents for the vast Three Gorges Dam.

To make way for rising waters, the government has already resettled whole towns and villages to higher slopes or distant cities and provinces -- an exodus that has brought protests of official corruption and inadequate compensation from displaced people, many of them poor farmers.

Before the waters peak at 175 meters next year, Xu, 51, and her sick husband Chen Kaishen must abandon "old Badong", a steep maze of rotting concrete blocks and half-demolished homes.

Their story is a small drama illuminating the hardships and tensions the dam has brought central China's Hubei province -- where Badong lies -- and neighboring Chongqing municipality.

Xu told it in their temporary home on the fifth floor of a largely abandoned apartment building. The stairwell appeared dangerously cracked and the concrete was rotting.

"This place could collapse, I know, but where do we go? If you owned a home here things could be okay. They'd give you somewhere to live at least. But we're different and that's why we're still here".

She said they had moved into the place after their old house, lower down the slopes, was threatened as authorities step-by-step lifted dam water levels.

"This isn't ours. Even this is borrowed. It belonged to the county police before they moved out. My husband never bought his apartment; we always rented it from his work unit. Then his factory was privatized and went bust. He got a payoff -- 16,000 yuan ($2,160). But even here that's not enough to buy any home".

Her husband, 50, was unable to speak after two strokes and watched and nodded mutely as she spoke.

"He got sick in 2000 and then again last year," said Xu. "Keeping up with the medical bills is hard enough. Our son gives us some money for that."

"Everyone here will have to move out soon. I don't know where we'll go".

"Some complained about moving. Some are doing better now. But not us ... Complaining is useless anyway. When you're poor nobody listens".

(Editing by Megan Goldin)