News Story: Reclamation by China makes Hughes Reef 200 times former size

<< An aerial shot of the Johnson South Reef in the South China Sea taken between late June and early July 2014. (Internet photo)

Hughes Reef in the Spratly Islands is now 200 times its former size thanks to China's land reclamation activities in the South China Sea, reports the UK-based Jane's Defence Weekly.

A Jan. 14 satellite image provided by Airbus Defence & Space shows a 75,000-square-meter reclaimed island and a large facility under construction at the reef, called Dongmen Reef in Chinese. This makes the land area approximately 200 times what it was 10 years ago, when compared to a DigitalGlobe image caught on Feb. 1, 2004 that showed the 380-square-meter concrete platform before construction began.

Other reefs have also been subject to reclamation. A recent satellite image of Johnson South Reef (Chigua Reef in Chinese), which is located 30 km southwest of Hughes Reef, shows major construction underway.

Read the full story at Want China Times