2011-12-30 11:13:42

YICHANG, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- This year\'s throughput of the Gezhouba Dam on the Yangtze River has exceeded 100 million tonnes, after fully loaded vessels entered the No. 2 dock Monday morning.
The annual throughput of the dam, the first large-scale hydropower project on the Yangtze River, has risen 28 times since it was put into use in June 1981, according to Liu Xianhua, a dock operator at the dam.
Liu said about 2.11 million ships had passed through over the past three decades, with an accumulated cargo throughput of over 680 million tonnes.
Liu attributed the fast growth in the dam\'s throughput to the economic boom along the Yangtze River and the development of the shipping industry.
More than half of the ships that pass through the dam are large-scale freighters with displacement of over 2,000 tonnes, while freighters of 5,000 tonnes or above account for 15 percent of the total, according to Liu.
Located across the Yangtze River at the end of the Three Gorges, the Gezhouba Dam is 2,561 meters long, 70 meters high and has a wall thickness of 30 meters.
The Gezhouba Dam is 38 km away from the Three Gorges Dam on the upper reach of the river.