Guwahati: Expressing anxiety over the recent earthquake that hit the Tibetan plateau killing over 125 residents and injuring several others, a forum of graduate engineers in northeast India apprehended probable damages in the Brahmaputra valley if the China-made massive hydropower project on Yarlung Zangbo collapses someday because of a high-intensity tremor.
In a media statement, the All Assam Engineer’s Association (AAEA) also urges the Union government in New Delhi to strongly deal with the Beijing administration for safeguarding the entire Brahmaputra river basin comprising eastern Bharat localities along with north Bangladesh.
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International news agencies reported that the powerful earthquake and aftershocks on 7 January 2025 hit the Tibetan region (now under the Communist Chinese occupation) along with some areas in Nepal, Bhutan and eastern India. The quake with an intensity of 7.1 (on Richter’s magnitude scale) also destroyed more than 3,500 houses in the thinly populated high-altitude Himalayan areas. Over 400 people were rescued and nearly 30,000 people have been relocated after the tremor, where the epicentre is located which is around 80 kilometers away from the base of Mount Everest. As the Beijing administration heavily restricts internet service in Tibet, the actual picture may surface a little later.
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“As China is constructing a large dam on the upstream of Brahmaputra, which may be the world’s largest hydropower project with the capacity of annual 300 billion kilowatt-hours electricity generation, New Delhi must pursue the matter with serious concern, even though the Chinese officials continue arguing that it would not have a major impact on the downstream areas,” said AAEA president Er Kailash Sarma, working president Er Nava J Thakuria and secretary Er Inamul Hye, adding that a major earthquake with the epicentre near to the Chinese project at any time may wreak havoc in lower riparian places covering the eastern localities of Bharat.
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(Nava Thakuria is a senior Indian journalist who contributes to various media outlets including print and digital platforms of India and across the world.)
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