Indian officials demand answers from Beijing over river’s pollution, blaming vast Chinese construction projects
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that it had never heard of the project mentioned by Indian officials
Officials in India’s northeast are complaining that Chinese construction activity on the upper reaches of one of the largest rivers that flows into India are likely turning the waters downstream turbid and unfit for human consumption.
Over the weekend, Sarbananda Sonowal, the chief minister of India’s Assam state, said the Brahmaputra river (known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in China) was contaminated with bacteria and iron, with laboratory tests declaring its waters unfit for human consumption. Sonowal asked that the Indian government take up the matter with Beijing.
Last week, Pema Khandu, the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, which shares a border with China, wrote to Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh, saying the waters of the Siang river have been “unusually turbid” for the past two months, and sought a federal investigation.
Keshab Mahanta, the water resources minister of Assam state, has written to Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj expressing serious concern about the water quality of the Bhramaputra.
The Chinese may seek to deny, but we suspect there is massive tunnel building activities to divert the Yarlung Tsangpo to Xinjiang province
Locals in Arunachal Pradesh suspect the Siang is contaminated because of Chinese construction activities in the upper reaches of the river, including possible attempts to divert the river to feed its arid northern areas.