CHINA has paid homage to the "sacrifice" of more than 100 nameless workers who died to build the Three Gorges dam, hailing its completion at 2pm yesterday as the greatest feat in thousands of years of Chinese civilisation.

The builders say the dam will end the annual floods that, since time immemorial, have killed untold numbers of Chinese in the valley of the Yangtze, the nation's longest river. The propaganda department proclaimed it a triumph of the will. But this was a triumph in which the willpower of the state knew no scruples. The workers'accidental deaths were admitted by the media for the first time as it celebrated the moment when engineers cemented the last section in place.

Yesterday's reports also acknowledged that 1.3m people lost their ancestral homes — many thrown out in angry despair as demolition squads wrecked the buildings before their eyes. As the dam rose, so did the waters behind it, leaving them no choice but to go.

Along the waterway there are stories at every landing stage of official corruption, of compensation denied, of property deeds stolen, of thugs smashing up houses, of false promises of new homes and of the ever-ready batons and bullets of the security forces.

The last gasp of protest seems to have erupted about six weeks ago in Wushan, a city of 300,000 at the confluence of the Yangtze and Daning rivers, when hundreds of farmers assembled in a main square gaudy with shops and food stalls for the newly prosperous citizens who have done well out of the dam.

"We were cheated," said a witness, whose name has been withheld to protect her from reprisals. "We tried to build new businesses after we were forced off the land. But I have had to move 10 times in three years, the compensation isn't enough to get an adequate home and nobody would listen."

The authorities were prompt to react once the anger boiled onto the streets. Three witnesses said hundreds of police surrounded the farmers and laid into them with batons and pistol butts, severely injuring many. The rest fled.

The next day a "political work team" arrived from Chongqing, the seat of local government. They immediately ordered every boat to stay in port and imposed identity checks on anyone coming to Wushan. That was the end of organised dissent.

"Nobody was happy," said a boatman, "but what could they do?" So whatever the cries of distress from the displaced, however strident the warnings of environmentalists, no matter how sceptical the economists, the fact is that the dam has been built.

It is a vindication for Li Peng, the veteran Leninist central planner. As prime minister of China he pushed through the grand design and his striking calligraphy adorns the giant suspension bridge — rigged with cables imported from Britain — above the waters gushing out of the dam.

The unpalatable truth for critics is that Li's heirs, the present leaders of China, proved they could create more winners than losers from the dam and they could easily suffocate what paltry opposition came from peasants, fishermen and old folk.

As the largest hydroelectric plant in the world, its 26 turbines will generate enough electricity to power 28 cities of 1m people each.

For the first time in Chinese history, ships can sail up the Yangtze to bring trade deep into the country, throwing open the gates to prosperity. Great 10,000-ton vessels carrying cars, computers, coal and steel to the export markets of the world are already ploughing through the three green gorges of Qutang, Wu and Xiling, celebrated by poets and painters in the Tang dynasty.