THE final obstacle to the largest hydro-electric dam in the world at China's Three Gorges was blown away in a series of massive explosions - by Weaverham's very own Dambuster!
Stuart Thomson, 36, was the mining engineer who used 191 tonnes of explosives - enough to topple 400 10-storey buildings - to destroy the nearby temporary dam, a feat beamed worldwide on television.
Within 13 seconds he collapsed perfectly the 580m by 140m high wall holding back the Yangtse River. The dam was build further upstream to allow the main dam wall - five times bigger than the USA's Hoover Dam - to be built.
Stuart, a former Weaverham High School and Sir John Deane's College student, passed a BSC in mining exploration and geology at Cardiff University in the early 1990s and has never looked back.
He is the son of Janet and Andy Thomson, of Withens Close. Dad Andy said: 'He went off round the world in a gap year and he's hardly been home since.
'We are chuffed to bits with him. We watched the explosions on Newsnight and it was good to know Stuart was responsible.
'He rang us and was euphoric. Of course, if he'd got it wrong the whole world would have known about him.'
Stuart gained BSC degree in mining exploration and geology at Cardiff University, before embarking on a world tour during his gap year.
In New Zealand he spotted an opportunity to be a gold mining engineer. Orica Explosives tried to persuade him to join and he moved to China two years ago.
The Three Gorges is described as China's biggest engineering project for 1,000 years. The risk in using so much explosive was in damaging the main dam and the power plant or even causing an earthquake. But the demolition was perfect, even sparing fish because of devices that scared them away from the area.
