China’s ‘water bomb’ tickling, India faces catastrophe in ‘water war’ with Beijing, details here

Yarlung Zangbo River In Tibet

At a time when India has kept the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, experts have expressed concerns over the Chinese project of constructing a dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River in Tibet. It is important for India because this river enters Arunachal Pradesh as the Brahmaputra River, which is the main river of Assam. The proposed dam project in Tibet is so massive that it can generate about 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. However, it can bring calamities to India as well. It gained additional significance after the controversy over the Indus Waters Treaty erupted. 

Dam over Yarlung Zangbo in Tibet

The Siang River originates near Mount Kailash in Tibet, where it is known as the Yarlung Zangbo. China has proposed to construct the world’s biggest dam in Medog country before it flows into India. This will be bigger than the Three Gorges Dam, currently the world’s largest hydro dam, in central China. The controversy over the project escalated after China and India made claims and counterclaims over it. 

While Beijing argues that the Siang project is important for meeting its net-zero emissions goal by 2060, New Delhi points out that it will disturb the flow of the Brahmaputra river and may bring catastrophe.  If media reports are to be believed, the dam will cost $137bn. A huge number of people in Tibet province may be displaced, though the number is not yet known. 

Huge dam, massive devastation

The dam’s construction will be an engineering marvel and a major challenge at the Great Bend near Mount Namcha Barwa, where the water falls into one of the deepest gorges in the world, with a depth exceeding 5,000 metres or 16,400 feet. In an attempt to checkmate China, India mulls constructing a counter-dam to “mitigate the adverse impact of the Chinese dam projects”. India argues that the Siang dam’s large reservoir would offset the disruption in the flow of the river by the upcoming Medog dam, and safeguard against flash floods or water scarcity.

India faces catastrophe

However, ecologists point out that the entire Himalayas will become more vulnerable to earthquakes due to the project. They point out that about 15% of the great earthquakes, with a magnitude greater than 8.0 on the Richter Scale, have occurred in the Himalayas. An earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale hit Tibet in January, 2025, and killed about 126 people. This is the reason the Yarlung Zangbo project is considered a water bomb that may bring major devastation to India.