China's water tunnel to 'turn Xinjiang into California'
China is developing plans to build the world's longest tunnel to turn a desert in Xinjiang "into California". Engineers are testing ways of building a 1,000 km tunnel to bring water from Tibet to the Taklimakan desert. The project is likely to generate protests by environmentalists but its benefits will be difficult for policymakers to resist, said Zhang Chuanqing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics in Wuhan. He said the water shortage in Xinjiang was similar to that of California before a water diversion project turned the state into a rich agricultural area.
The desert sun shines above the Taklimakan Desert east of Hotan in Xinjiang in October 2006. Photo: AFP