The relocation of nearly 3 million villagers in northwest China who have suffered hardship and natural disasters for years is to begin next year.

It will be the biggest mass migration of people in China's history and will take some 10 years to complete.

The Shaanxi Province government has pledged to provide the villagers with new homes and improved living conditions by 2020, the Chinese Business View reported yesterday.

In 2006, nearly 1.5 million residents gave up their homes to make way for the world's biggest hydroelectric scheme on the Yangtze River - the Three Gorges Dam.

But this time the residents will be moving in search of a better life and not because their homes are about to disappear, provincial government officials told a press conference.

A total of 2.4 million residents in the province's disaster-prone south, plus another 392,000 in its poverty-stricken northern mountain area, will leave their homes, said Acting Governor Zhao Zhengyong.

"In a flood this year, I was distressed to learn that more than 20 residents in a village were overwhelmed instantly," the newspaper quoted Zhao as saying. "The government promises to enable its people to live in safety and convenience."

He said that villagers who live in the most dangerous places in remote mountain areas will be moved first.

A total of 28 counties of three cities in the southern part of the province will be involved. The relocated villagers are expected to account for more than a quarter of the total population of the three cities - Hanzhong, Ankang and Shangluo.

Those who will remain are not in areas under threat from the forces of nature.

Meanwhile, 392,000 residents in the Baiyu mountain area, one of the province's poorest regions, will also be moved by 2020.

The relocated villagers are expected to live in towns or form new villages, supplied with clean tap water, electricity and gas, Zhao said.

More importantly, Zhao added, the villagers would be able to rid their lives of the constant threat of floods, landslides and other natural disasters as well as endemic disease which claimed dozens of lives every year.

Although the Shaanxi government hasn't yet announced its budget for the move, or the location of the new homes, the plan has already been welcomed.

Qi Fengmin, Party secretary of Langgou Village, one of the communities on the relocation list, said they were all willing to move out just for clean water. But Qi said he hoped the government would allocate them more farmland to improve their incomes.

Officials said the relocated villagers would be offered financial aid, farmland and project support once settled in their new homes.

(Shanghai Daily December 8, 2010)