Yanan officials move mountains, literally, to expand city
After 33 hills are levelled to clear way for huge urbanisation project, fears are expressed on safety and social implications for iconic city
Yanan, the iconic centre of the Communist Party's revolutionary past, has answered the central government's call for urbanisation by flattening an area of the erosion-prone Loess Plateau almost as large as Hong Kong Island.
Thousands of excavators and dump trucks have worked around the clock since April to level 33 hills in the city's suburbs, magazine reported. The 78.5-square-kilometre development would more than double the urban area of Yanan, which served as refuge to Mao Zedong's Red Army after the "long march".
Local officials hope the 100 billion yuan (HK$123 billion) project will help the booming oil town overcome its space crunch. With a Y-shaped footprint wedged between three mountains, Yanan has a population density of 14,700 people per square kilometre, a figure similar to Beijing and Shanghai.
An earlier report by the said about 200,000 people would be moved to the new town once construction is finished.
Some Yanan residents welcomed this modern version of the parable "Yu Gong moving away the mountains", in which immortals intervene and end a family's long struggle to move a mountain in front of their home.
But the project also met strong criticism online yesterday, with some internet users ridiculing it as reckless.
