More than 50,000 people will pay for the nation'., power crisis. The Vietnamese government announced it., plans to displace a large number of people from a remote northern province to make way for a big hydroelectric power project. According to an informed source, thousands of hectares of forests and farmlands would be flooded and nearly 110,000 people in the Son La and Lai Chau provinces could be affected by the proposed reservoir. Economic zones would be built for the displaced communities, some 500 km from thier homelands. Many of the people in this mountainous region are ethnic minorities. The power plant, likely to be ready by AD 2007, would produce 17 billion kilowatt-hours of power a year. The government has yet to find investment capital to the tune of US $3.5 billion. A Western economist in Vietnam has expressed grave concerns about the impact of the project on the lives of local inhabitants. The construction of the Son La project is slated to begin in 1998.
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