Trucks dump stone materials into Jinsha River on Thursday, November 8, 2007, when China successfully dammed the river, marking a key step in the construction of the Xiluodu hydropower plant. [Photo: Xinhua]

China successfully dammed the Jinsha River on Thursday, marking a key step in the construction of the Xiluodu hydropower plant. When completed, the dam will be the second largest of its type in the country after the massive Three Gorges Project.

Wang Shukai, deputy director of the project under the China Three Gorges Project Corporation, said it took workers 30 hours to complete the damming at 15:38 p.m. at Xiluodu in the southwestern Sichuan Province. At that spot, the river is 47 meters wide and runs at a speed of seven meters per second.

"This power plant will contribute to the country's drive of developing undeveloped western regions and to the promotion of a sustainable development of society, economics and environment," he said.

With a designed installed capacity of 12.6 million kilowatts, the Xiluodu plant will be the nation's second largest hydropower plant following the Three Gorges Plant and the third largest of its type in the world.

When finished in 2015, the dam will stand 278 meters high with a reservoir containing 11.57 billion cubic meters of water.

The annual power output of the plant is equivalent to that generated by about 41 million tons of coal and will greatly reduce pollution.

The project, with an investment of 50.34 billion yuan (6.76 billion U.S. dollars), started construction in 2005. It will increase the capacity of the Three Gorges and Gezhouba plants by 379,200 kilowatts in total and enable them to generate about 1.88 billion kwh more power accumulatively during the low-water season.