Records of similar flash floods along the India-Tibet border during the past quarter century exposes the tendency of China to keep neighbours in the dark.
The devastation caused by flash floods in a Tibetan river system in Nepal and India during the last week of August has many dimensions that go far beyond a “natural” tragedy and the helplessness of human society before nature’s fury. The way the Chinese government, the colonial ruler of Tibet, handled this tragedy deserves to be viewed against the background of a long chain of similar flash floods along the borders of India and Nepal during the past quarter century. These trends indicate a calculated, criminal and inhuman mindset on China’s part, aimed at exploiting the misery of its neighbours. It is now beyond doubt that the Chinese administrators of Tibet allowed more than an hour to pass before a glacial landslide inside Tibet on the Bhote-Koshi River turned into a catastrophic flash flood and hit the Nepal border at Rasuwagadhi-Gyrong with unprecedented fury. Thousands of unfortunate local Nepalese citizens in Rasuwagadhi, hundreds of international tourists, and millions of Nepalese and Indian citizens living along the complex river network of the Bhote-Koshi, Trishuli and Narayani rivers have been exposed to the devastation caused by these floods. At the time of writing, almost 400 deaths had already been confirmed, while more than 1,500 people remained unaccounted for or untraced. At least half of the casualties are believed to be foreign nationals who were waiting to cross the Nepal-Tibet border to proceed to their Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage or other destinations in Tibet. A total of 288 Indian citizens are officially reported as “missing” or “untraceable”. Fresh reports indicated that, after causing all this devastation in Nepal, the massive floodwaters were advancing towards India’s Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states.
It is shocking that the only official information shared by Chinese officials with the Nepal government on 26 August came more than three hours after the floods had already entered Nepal. China informed Nepal that the artificial lake that was the source of the floods was now “empty”. Its next announcement was that China was sending a large team of experts to study the loss of Chinese lives at the border check-post and to assist the Nepalese authorities in relief work.
Those aware of the true Chinese character from history would not be surprised to discover that if over the next few days, the Chinese “teams of experts” may actually be collecting data on the movement of floodwaters to calibrate future plans for using Tibetan river waters as a “water bomb” against neighbouring Nepal and India. This calculated indifference and opacity on the part of Chinese authorities in managing Tibet’s rivers and handling flood situations caused in Nepal and India by landslides in Tibet surely fall under the definition of a war crime, and the Chinese leadership deserves to face the consequences.
Records of similar flash floods along the India Tibet border, especially in Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh during the past quarter century, should be enough to expose the tendency of Chinese authorities to keep their neighbours along the Tibetan borders in the dark during similar flash-floods.
In April 2000, a gigantic landslide measuring about 105 million cubic metres blocked the Yigong river, a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo, which takes the Indian names “Siang” in Arunachal Pradesh and “Brahmaputra” in Assam. The Chinese authorities allowed it to swell into a massive lake of about 3 billion cubic metres for more than two months, until June 10, when it collapsed and caused unprecedented havoc in four districts of Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Assam. The Siang at Pasighat rose by 120 feet, causing floods that swept away three major strategic defence road bridges, including the Ranaghat bridge. Besides claiming 30 lives and leaving about 5,000 families homeless, the disaster caused a total loss of more than Rs 140 crore.
In 2017, an earthquake-induced landslide in the same river near the Great Bend in Tibet’s Nyingchi region turned the waters of the Siang and Brahmaputra into a drain of thick black slurry, killed millions of fish, and made the water undrinkable for months. Yet another landslide, in October 2018 in Milin County of Tibet, created an artificial lake over the following two weeks before it burst and caused massive floods in Arunachal Pradesh along the Siang.
Similar flash floods in Himachal Pradesh in 2000, 2004 and 2005 were even more devastating. In the 2004 event, caused by a landslide blocking the Pareechu river, water accumulated over 230 hectares before the Chinese exploded the bund on the Indian side, causing severe flooding in India’s Sutlej river. The disaster killed more than 150 Indians and completely destroyed 250 houses, 20 bridges and four power projects. The worst part of the episode was that China neither shared data on the accumulating water with India nor allowed Indian engineers to assess the severity of the blockage, which had been building up for weeks before it burst.
However, India’s open system allowed the Chinese to collect all the necessary data from these disasters to calibrate their future plans for using Tibetan river waters as a “water bomb” against India.
China’s tinkering with Tibetan river waters is already having a serious impact on the water flow and environment of riparian countries such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In the wake of the latest Nepalese flash floods, it would be appropriate for the governments of these riparian countries to join hands to confront China and force it to amend its actions. Since tourists from many other countries, including the United States, Japan and South Korea have also become direct victims of this, it is high time that the world community treated it as a “war crime” and held China accountable.
*Vijay Kranti is a senior journalist and chairman of “Centre for Himalayan Asia Studies and Engagement”, New Delhi. His latest book is “China’s Colonial Games in Tibet”.
