China Central Television and the Yunnan Provincial Television Station will broadcast live the underwater archaeological activities in Fuxian Lake, southwest China's Yunnan Province, slated for June 3.
This will be the first time China's TV industry engaging in such operations.
Fuxian Lake, the second largest plateau freshwater lake in China, covers an area of 212 square kilometers. It is 87 meters deep on average and 155 meters deep at some points.
Several divers discovered ruins of ancient buildings at the bottom of the lake last November.
Yu Xixian, an archaeologist with the Peking University, and two journalists from Yunnan Daily conducted several on-the-spot investigations at the bottom of the lake in March this year.
Based on a large number of pictures and video tapes taken by Yu and the two reporters and a man-made stone carving, archaeologists confirmed that there exist the ruins of ancient civilization at the bottom of Fuxian Lake.
Pictures and video tapes show that this is a site of community formed by stone buildings, which consists of eight parts distributing in an area two kilometers long from north to south and 1.2 kilometers from east to west.
The upcoming underwater investigation is aimed at finding out the cause and date of the falling of the site into the lake, and the real situation of the community.
(People's Daily 05/31/2001)
