China to build world's largest hydropower dam in Tibet

China has approved the operation of what volition beryllium the world's largest hydropower dam, stoking concerns astir displacement of communities successful Tibet and biology impacts downstream successful India and Bangladesh.

The dam, which volition beryllium located successful the little reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo river, could make 3 times much vigor than the Three Gorges Dam, presently the world's largest hydropower plant.

Chinese authorities media has described the improvement arsenic "a harmless task that prioritises ecological protection", saying it volition boost section prosperity and lend to Beijing's clime neutrality goals.

Human rights groups and experts, however, person raised concerns astir the development's knock-on effects.

Among them are fears that the operation of the dam - archetypal announced successful late-2020 - could displace section communities, arsenic good arsenic importantly change the earthy scenery and harm section ecosystems, which are among the richest and astir divers connected the Tibetan Plateau.

China has built respective dams successful Tibetan areas - a contentious taxable successful a portion tightly controlled by Beijing ever since it was annexed successful the 1950s.

Activists person antecedently told the BBC that the dams are the latest illustration of Beijing's exploitation of Tibetans and their land. Mainly-Buddhist Tibet has seen waves of crackdowns implicit the years, successful which thousands are believed to person been killed.

Earlier this year, the Chinese authorities rounded up hundreds of Tibetans who had been protesting against different hydropower dam. It ended successful arrests and beatings, with immoderate radical earnestly injured, the BBC learned done sources and verified footage.

They had been opposing plans to physique the Gangtuo dam and hydropower plant, which would displace respective villages and submerge past monasteries with ineffable relics. Bejing, however, said it had relocated and compensated locals, and moved the anicent murals to safety.

In the lawsuit of the Yarlung Tsangpo dam, Chinese authorities person stressed that the task would not person large biology interaction - but they person not indicated however galore radical it would displace. The Three Gorges hydropower dam required the resettlement of 1.4 cardinal people.

Reports bespeak that the colossal improvement would necessitate astatine slightest 4 20km-long tunnels to beryllium drilled done the Namcha Barwa mountain, diverting the travel of the Yarlung Tsangpo, Tibet's longest river.

Experts and officials person besides flagged concerns that the dam would empower China to power oregon divert the travel of the trans-border river, which flows southbound into India's Arunachal Pradesh and Assam states and onwards into Bangladesh.

A 2020 study published by the Lowy Institute, an Australian-based deliberation tank, noted that "control implicit these rivers [in the Tibetan Plateau] efficaciously gives China a chokehold connected India's economy".

Shortly aft China announced its plans for the Yarlung Tsangpo dam task successful 2020, a elder Indian authorities authoritative told Reuters that India's authorities was exploring the improvement of a ample hydropower dam and reservoir "to mitigate the adverse interaction of the Chinese dam projects".

China's overseas ministry has antecedently responded to India's concerns astir the projected dam, saying successful 2020 that China has a "legitimate right" to dam the stream and has considered downstream impacts.

China has constructed aggregate hydropower stations on the people of the Yarlung Tsangpo implicit the past decennary successful a bid to harness the river's powerfulness arsenic a root of renewable energy. Flowing done the deepest canyon connected Earth, 1 conception of the stream falls 2,000 metres wrong a abbreviated span of conscionable 50 km, offering immense imaginable for generating hydropower.

The river's melodramatic topography, however, besides poses large engineering challenges - and this latest dam is by acold China's largest and astir ambitious to date.

The tract of the improvement is located on an earthquake-prone tectonic sheet boundary. Chinese researchers person besides antecedently flagged concerns that specified extended excavation and operation successful the steep and constrictive gorge would summation the frequence of landslides.

"Earthquake-induced landslides and mud-rock flows are often uncontrollable and volition besides airs a immense menace to the project," a elder technologist from Sichuan provincial geological bureau said successful 2022.

The task could outgo arsenic overmuch arsenic a trillion yuan ($127bn; £109.3bn) according to estimates by the Chongyi Water Resources bureau.