BEIJING

China has been warned it could face a catastrophe if it fails to stop environmental problems such as flooding and erosion caused by the gigantic Three Gorges Dam.

The dam, China's showcase engineering triumph and the world's biggest hydropower project, has been relentlessly promoted as a cure-all for devastating flooding on the Yangtze River, and a source of clean power in a nation heavily reliant on coal.

However, officials have raised concerns over erosion and landslides on hills around the dam, along with problems caused by unplanned development, says a website report in the Communist Party mouthpiece, People's Daily.

"There are many new and old hidden ecological and environmental dangers concerning the Three Gorges Dam," officials are quoted as saying. "If preventive measures are not taken, the project could lead to a catastrophe."

The state-run Xinhua News Agency said the size of the massive reservoir behind the dam had started to erode the Yangtze's banks, which, "together with frequent fluctuations in water levels, had triggered a series of landslides".

China's premier has made environmental issues connected with the dam a top priority, said Wang Xiaofeng, head of the Cabinet office commission in charge of building the dam.

"We cannot lower our guard against ecological and environmental problems caused by the Three Gorges project," Wang was quoted as telling a seminar in the Yangtze River city of Wuhan.

"We cannot win by achieving economic prosperity at the cost of the environment," Wang said.

Begun in 1993, the Three Gorges dam project, with an overall price tag of nearly £12bn, has steamed ahead with the backing of the Communist leadership despite complaints about its cost, environmental concerns and the forced relocation of 1.4 million residents from areas flooded by the dam's reservoir.

The left bank of the dam began generating power in 2005, and turbines on the right side of the dam started sending their first trickle of electricity to the power grid earlier this month. The project is due to be fully operational by 2009.-AP