The Economist of 31st July has reported that Three Gorges Dam of China has been tested this year by the once-in-a-century flood and held up. By July 28th, the level of water was 158 meters above the sea level, well within the 175-meter limit. During 1998, four thousand people had died in China in floods. Not a single person died this year in floods as the vicious surge of Yangzi River was contained by Three Gorges Dam. The politicians of ANP that justify their opposition to Kalabagh dam by saying the current floods could have been worse if the dam had been built, ought to revise their views. May I also point out that the level of Kalabagh dam was reduced by 10 ft. which means the lake would end 10 miles away from Nowshehrathe river gradient being one foot in a mile. Dams act to control the surge in a river, just like Three Gorges Dam did in China. The surplus water that came with floods simply flowed out of the spillway. The flood in Kabul River gets clogged in the narrow gorge where the Kabul River meets the Indus and it has no nexus with the proposed lake of dam that is supposed to be 10 miles away. Moreover, with Tarbela upstream the situation of 1929 does not exist. Actually the dam would also serve to save the people downstream from ravages of flood which is not being considered by the ANP stalwarts in their myopic view. DR. M. YAQOOB BHATTI, Lahore, August 3.