YICHANG, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- A Three Gorges Project official has admitted that the actual number of people needed to be relocated from their homes for the construction of the Three Gorges dam will exceed 1.2 million.

Gao Jinbang, deputy director of the Office with the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee of the State Council, said the original plan called for relocating 1.13 million people.

But by the end of 2006, a total of 1.2 million people had moved out of the reservoir area. Gao cited natural population growth and human migration as the reasons behind the increase in the total number of people to be displaced.

According to Gao, 47,300 more residents in the reservoir area will bid farewell to their ancestral homes and settle down elsewhere this year, at a cost of 5.5 billion yuan (about 688 million U.S. dollars).