New Delhi: Satellite imagery has revealed that China is constructing a new dam on the Mabja Zangbo river in Tibet. The under-construction dam is located close to the tri-junction and on the opposite side of Uttrakhand's Kalapani area, official sources said.
The satellite images came to light in a tweet on January 19, by Damien Symon who according to his twitter profile works as a geopolitical intelligence researcher at Intel Lab.
"Since early 2021, China has been constructing a dam on the Mabja Zangbo river just a few kilometers north of the trijunction border with India & Nepal, while the structure isn't complete, the project will raise concerns regarding China's future control of the water in the region," tweeted Symon.
According to official sources, China could not only use the dam by using the leverage of controlling the water flow of the river but can also set up military infrastructure in the area. They further revealed that China could divert and store water with the dam leading to scarcity of water in regions that depend on the Mabja Zangbo river door supply of water and use it as a means to bolster its claim on the disputed areas in the concerned region.
The Mabja Zangbo river which originates in the Himalayas Tibet and then enters India through Arunachal Pradesh. It passes through Assam and Bangladesh before reaching the Bay of Bengal.
The development comes after China in 2021 announced that it would construct a mega dam on the Yarlung Zangbo for a hydropower project generating 70GW of power. It is thrice as much as that of the Three Georges dam which is the largest hydropower project in the world in terms of installed capacity.
