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WUHAN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The northern ship lock of the Yangtze River's Three Gorges Dam resumed traffic on Tuesday after 40 days of checkup and maintenance.
More than 600 people participated in the maintenance work, which began on Feb. 2, according to the China Three Gorges Corporation.
Currently, more than 900 ships are near the dam, said the Yangtze Three Gorges Navigation Authority in central China's Hubei Province. The two ship locks and a shiplift all run normally to help them cross the dam.
The project's five-tier ship locks have been operating for nearly 14 years. Routine checkups are necessary to ensure their safe and efficient operation.
The Three Gorges project is a multi-functional water control system, consisting of a 2,309-meter-long and 185-meter-high dam, a five-tier ship lock on the north and south, and 34 turbo-generators with a combined generating capacity of 22.5 million kilowatts.
As of March 1, the world's largest hydropower plant has generated 1 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity following 14 years of operation.
The throughput through the ship locks of the Three Gorges exceeded 130 million tonnes in 2016, up 8.3 percent over 2015.
