The group of engineers who built the dam have taken into account the possibility that someone might want to explode a nuclear device in the air, in the water or directly on top of the giant structure, the China Daily said.

What exactly would happen if the dam were to take a direct hit was left unexplained in the article, but it suggested that areas up to hundreds of kilometres (miles) downstream would not suffer heavy flooding.

Major cities such as Shanghai and Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province, will not suffer to any great degree as channels have been built to divert excess water released from a wrecked dam, according to the paper.

The Three Gorges project kicked off in 1993 and is expected to be completed in 2009.

It has been criticized for its huge cost, involving a total investment of 180 billion yuan (22 billion dollars) and an unproven capacity to control floods on the lowers reaches of the Yangtze.

Critics have also cited environmental problems, including silt accumulation and pollution controls in hundreds of cities and villages along the reservoir.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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