THE NEW WATER BOMB

On 25 December― barely a month after the disengagement along the Line of Actual Control-China dropped another bombshell.

- AJAY SINGH

It announced the construction of the Yarlung Tsangpo dam in the Medog County, Tibet. This $137 billion project, which will generate 40,000 Megawatts of electricity annually, will be the largest hydroelectric project in the world and aims to harness the power of the Brahmaputra (or Yarlung Tsangpo, as it is called in Tibet) in the area of the great bend, where the river makes a U-turn before entering India. To put it in perspective, it is three times larger than the present largest dam in the world, the Three Gorges Dam the Chinese had built across the Yangtze River. This project dwarfs even that and holds greater dangers.

The dam is cause for concern. The Brahmaputra is one of the world's largest rivers, originating in Tibet, entering India in Arunachal Pradesh (where it is called Siang) and then flows into Bangladesh (called Jamuna there), where it merges with the Ganges and eventually completes its 2,900 km long journey in the Bay of Bengal. Over 60 million people are dependent, directly or indirectly, on this mighty river, especially in the lower riparian states of India and Bangladesh.

The construction of a large dam in one of the most seismically volatile areas of the world could impact the earth's plate across the entire Tibetan Plateau and as far as the Indo-Gangetic plains. As it is earthquakes have been striking Tibet with increasing frequency.

The construction of massive dams, tunnels (four tunnels, each over 20 km long are to be drilled beneath the mountains to funnel the water) and massive reservoirs in this sensitive region will have a long-term ecological impact, which cannot be gauged at this juncture. The Three Gorges Dam created a reservoir whose very weight slowed the rotation of the earth.

A dam three times larger could create for greater imbalances.