Picture of the Week – 29.6.15 – Construction and relocation
By Tessa Bunney on 29 June 2015Currently, down in the Nam Ou river valley, the first phase of construction on the Nam Ou Cascade Hydropower Project by Chinese corporation Sinohydro has begun, the project will generate electricity, 90% of which will be exported to other countries in the region. The project will directly affect many villages through construction, reservoir impoundment and back flooding resulting in loss of land and assets and village relocation.
Construction of Nam Ou Cascade Hydropower Project Dam 6 in Phongsaly province.
Construction of Ban Sam Sang. After already having relocated temporarily away from the Nam Ou river as a result of Dam 6, four Laoseng ethnic minority villages are due to move permanently to this new village before the end of 2015.
Construction of a new temple in Ban Sam Sang – most of the workers on this site are Tai Dam ethnicity from the Dien Bien Phu area just over the border in Vietnam.
Other less skilled work is offered to local people from the Akha villages in the mountains which are not directly affected by the dam construction. Subsistence farmers from remote villages, this is the first time many of them have undertaken this kind of work.