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NEIGHBOURS: FLOODS
Flood Forecasts Essential
The authorities
are reluctant to give out information about the "floods" in
view of the "sensitive" nature of India-China relations. But
it is apparent that the floods in Arunachal had occurred due to a breach
of a lake on the Tsangpo river. ISRO has even pin-pointed this lake at
latitude 30.15 degrees North and longitude 94.50 degrees East in Tibet.
Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong
Apang says a lake was formed after the Yigoing river-a tributary of the
Tsangpo-got blocked by massive landslides in Tibet's Bomi region in April
2000. He alleges that the Chinese authorities took the help of the army
to breach the artificial lake, resulting in floods downstream. Apang said
the road link to Upper Siang district is still cut off from India and
the Kargo and Nubo bridges, two of the biggest steel bridges in the state,
were completely washed away and have to be rebuilt.
In Himachal Pradesh, 14 major strategic bridges
on the national highway were swept away and air force helicopters were
deployed for rescue and relief work. Kinnaur, district, famous for its
apples and alpine landscape, remained cut off from the rest of the country
for several weeks. The worst hit was the Nathpa-Jhakri hydroelectric project
which was coming up on the Sutlej river in Rampur district. Water entered
the turbine section of the multi-crore 1,500 MW project, setting it back
by almost three years. Considering that India plans to set up hydel projects
on the Brahmaputra also, it is important that such calamities do not recur.
Keeping in view the massive damage caused by
the floods and with satellite evidence in hand, Delhi has now taken up
the matter with Beijing. While China remains firm that it did not cause
the flash floods, it has agreed to discuss an Indian proposal to set up
a flood forecasting system for the Brahmaputra river system. But it has
still not responded to a similar proposal for the Sutlej river.
A team headed by Commissioner (Eastern Region)
M.L. Goel in the Ministry of Water Resources is currently in Beijing to
seek China's cooperation in preventing recurrence of such disasters. Goel's
team will meet the director-general for international cooperation in the
Chinese foreign office and discuss the possibility of exchanging river
data for flood forecasting. A senior official of the Ministry of Water
Resources says the visit would be the first step in setting up a joint
monitoring group for better river management.
This is not the first time that the two countries
will be working together on flood forecasting and river management. In
the happier Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai days of the 1950s, India and China used
to exchange flood forecasts for the Brahmaputra. But this exercise was
discontinued after the 1962 border conflict. It is in India's interest
to revive the practice.
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