Two thirds of the 1,216 households that will be flooded by the reservoir created by the Nam Theun II dam in central Laos have been relocated, the World Bank said Friday.

The relocation of 6,500 people from 17 villages will be completed by May next year, a month before the reservoir is flooded.

Fourteen households in Ban Sob Hia on the banks of the Nam Theun River that earlier refused to move have changed their minds, according to Patchamuthu Illangovan, the bank's country manager in Laos.

These people are Vietic animists who resisted resettlement on grounds they did not want to leave their spiritual land. They claimed the land where they were to move to was not fertile.

The Nam Theun Power Company failed several times to convince them to move. Independent consultants recently spent a week with the villagers.

They have now agreed to move to higher ground near their current homes, Illangovan said.

"After consultation, they now understand the rehabilitation programme and eventually they will move of their own choice," he said in a briefing via teleconference from Vientiane.

The dam, which will have a capacity of 1,070 megawatts and supply Thailand, will have many implications for the environment and society.

As well as the thousands who will be directly affected, many more along the banks of the Xe Bang Fai river will be affected by diversion.

The World Bank, which provided a risk guarantee for the project, requires the company to allocate 10 per cent of its US$1 billion (Bt33.6 billion) construction cost for resettlement and environmental protection.

Companies from China, Malaysia and Thailand are conducting feasibility studies into at least three more dams on the Mekong. The environmental and societal effects of these will surpass those of Nam Theun.

The government of Laos has set the criteria and requirements imposed for Nam Theun II as standard for other dams, said its deputy head of energy Xaypaseuth Phomsoupha.

Dams with installed capacity of more than 50 megawatts and reservoirs bigger than 10,000 hectares must follow the same standards of social rehabilitation and environment protection as Nam Theun II, he said.
(Quelle: The Nation, 14. Dezember 2007)