India's challenge is that it has limited control over developments taking place on the Tibetan side of the river. This makes information-sharing and real-time hydrological data particularly important. The similar situation was witnessed in Nepal on Wednesday.
Kathmandu-based journalist Parshuram Kaphle said Beijing didn't alert Nepal about the massive wall of water moving downstream.
"Nepal has been addressing the legitimate security concerns of our neighbors. However, it must be said with sadness that our northern neighbor has significantly undermined us. By failing to provide early warning of such a massive disaster, we suffered immense loss of human life," wrote Kaphle on X.
Fresh concerns over the structural safety of the Medog Dam were raised in July after the study by geologists affiliated with China's state-run geological survey.
According to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), citing a paper published in Mandarin in the journal Sedimentary Geology and Tethyan Geology under the supervision of the state-owned China Geological Survey, researchers identified the active Paizhen Fault directly beneath the Medog Dam site on the Yarlung Tsangpo.
China began the construction of what is set to become the world's largest hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet, triggering concerns in India over water security, flooding, ecology and the future of communities living downstream.
The project, also known as the Motuo Hydropower Station, is estimated to cost around $167 billion. Once completed, the Medog Dam will surpass China's Three Gorges Dam, which is the world's largest, to become the largest hydroelectric project in size and could generate roughly three times as much electricity, according to the Sydney-based think tank, Lowy Institute.
"The risks posed by the new super-dam are significant because it is being built in the Himalayan seismically active belt, where the Indian and Eurasian plates collide. The belt has produced some of Asia's strongest earthquakes, including the devastating 2025 Myanmar earthquake, whose tremors extended to Thailand, causing the collapse of a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok.
Former Indian ambassador and foreign affairs commentator Rajiv Dogra warned the risk of a "much bigger devastation" to India's northeast because of the Chinese dam.
"A much bigger devastation could strike India's North-East if China goes to complete its 60,000 MW monster dam on Brahmaputra in seismologically sensitive zone," wrote Dogra on X.
China has been building settlements and infrastructure projects in eco-sensitive border areas. Of course, the Nepal disaster will renew global attention on China's folly in persisting with the construction of the world's largest dam in the middle of the Himalayan seismic zone.
The project, located next to the Indo-Tibetan border, is a water bomb in the making, which could drown India's northeast and wreak havoc farther downstream in Bangladesh.
ends
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