Yarlung Tsangpo River

Hmm.

So that is why what I am trying to look at from a larger challenge that we face, 'cause one is expecting a similar kind of situation in Yarlung Tsangpo, uh, that's called Brahmaputra once it enters India.

Um, one you can expect that similar kind of, uh, challenges.

The other one is looking at what it would be, uh, an impact on downstream if none of these things happens, like there is no glacier lake outburst-

Right.

So a lot of this activity and engineering, particularly on the Medog hydro project that you mentioned, is centered around a very specific geographical feature.

So why is this great bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo such a geographically and climatically sensitive region?

Okay, let me put it in this way.

But there is no, uh, permanent regional mechanisms or the standard operating, uh, procedures, uh, where between Nepal and, uh, China to monitor everything.

And then the another huge, uh, um, issue that we have to look is the China and India as well, because the India's, the, the major river, the Brahmaputra River, and the Tibetan name is Yarlung Tsangpo, flows from Tibet and then in India, uh, through Arunachal Pradesh and Assam and then finally, uh, in Bangladesh as well.

So in terms of the India-China, uh, you know, the, uh, cooperation on the specifically Brahmaputra, there is a very limited, uh, you know, India-China cooperation on the Brahmaputra.

Whereas almost more than sixty-eight million people, uh- From Tibet and also in India and Bangladesh, their lives are depends on the Brahmaputra that flows from Tibet, right? Even though there is a limited, uh, you know, interaction supposed to have, uh, MOU, uh, or joint expert level mechanisms with the, uh, India and China and also, you know, information sharing, but in China uses that as a political tool.

So once, uh, when I was in Egypt, when there was a discussion on the Brahmaputra River, the scholars from Pakistan, India, Nepal, you know, they were talking about Brahmaputra, but they were not mentioning anything on the Brahmaputra on the upstream.

They were talking about Brahmaputra from India and then Bangladesh.

And I got curious, how can you talk about a river not really talking about the source of the river? How can you completely, you know, ignore or, you know, neglect the whole, uh, the Yarlung Tsangpo, the Brahmaputra in the Tibet? So that is very, very frustrating, uh, to see.

And it is a time that, uh, you know, the people should understand the transboundary nature of the whole, uh, river system.

Furthermore, India has to pay for it, shelling out 10 million rupees every year to purchase this data.

During the 2017 China-India standoff at Doklam, the CCP even went so far as to directly cut off the supply of hydrological data for the Yarlung Tsangpo River to India, claiming that the data collection stations in Tibet were, well, undergoing renovations.

But they were quickly called out by the BBC, because the BBC discovered that at the same time, the CCP hadn't interrupted the same set of data being provided to Bangladesh for a single day.

So that year, floods from the Yarlong Tsangpo surged into India this Samstay, leaving over 60 people dead and 3.3 million displaced.

And essentially, this is a bit of a water bomb.

Because if the Chinese build a dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, the world's highest altitude river, the world's highest altitude dam, the biggest dam in the world, they would be building, in effect, a water bomb.

If they decide to fill up the dam, it's a problem for the Indians because they and Bangladesh will get less water.

But if they decide to open the dam, they just flood everything in the way.

He says China needs to share upstream river data with Nepal in real time so downstream communities can receive earlier warnings.

China has already built several major dams in Tibet and is developing an enormous new project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River.

The project is being built in one of the world's most seismically volatile regions, adding to concerns about the consequences of earthquakes and landslides.

Scientists warning that massive rock and ice avalanches could pose risks to dams across the Himalayas.

Nepal's deadly flooding has exposed the dangers of China's aggressive dam building ambitions in the Himalayas.

As rivers surge across South Asia, Beijing's massive Yarlung Tsangpo project raises fears of a far greater disaster in an earthquake-prone region, as a major failure could unleash enormous volumes of water downstream.

China's pursuit of strategic control over vital rivers increasingly looks like a dangerous gamble with millions of lives.

And the fourth view comes from The Kathmandu Post.