Mao Zedong's ill-conceived plan half a century ago to build a dam to cut the flow of the Yellow River not only sowed the seeds of persistent floods in Weinan, Shaanxi , but also gave local officials many chances to embezzle relief funds.
In 1956, Mao decided, with the help of former Soviet experts, to build the Sanmenxia Reservoir to prevent flooding and provide hydroelectricity and water for irrigation. Mao said the project could benefit 200 million people in Shaanxi, Shanxi , Henan , Shandong , Anhui and Jiangsu .
About 67,000 hectares, including more than 53,000 hectares of productive farmland, was submerged in Shaanxi, where 410,000 villagers were relocated, with 287,000 coming from Weinan.
But, the 4 billion yuan project was a failure and instead intensified flooding in Huayin, a county-level city under Weinan, where the Wei River - a tributary of the Yellow River - flowed backwards because its river bed was raised by more than 5 metres. In the 1960s, the central government scaled back the project.
Since the mid-1980s, 73,965 villagers have been allowed to return to Huayin. The central government allocated 3 billion yuan in relief funds to pay for their relocation and assigned 20,800 hectares of farmland for the villagers. But the money and land did not bring relief to the villagers, it simply created profiteering opportunities.
Li Jixin , a retired leader in Weinan, is convinced cadres in Weinan and Huayin had misappropriated relief funds in the past two decades.
'As far as I know, the central government allocated at least 2.5 billion yuan to Shaanxi to help house relocated villagers in the past 20 years. But very little money was spent on relocation and other related projects,' Mr Li said.