“A much bigger devastation could strike India’s North-East if China goes to complete its 60,000 MW monster dam on Brahmaputra in a seismologically sensitive zone,” says Rajiv Dogra, a former Indian diplomat. That is, devastation even bigger than that inflicted by the recent Nepal-Tibet avalanche and flooding, which swept through towns and caused thousands of deaths.
The dam-in-progress is the Medog or Motuo Hydropower Station, scheduled to be finished somewhere around 2033 (Japan Forward, September 16, 2026).
China broke ground on the hydropower station in July 2025. The project carries a total investment of 1.2 trillion yuan—roughly 28 trillion yen (about $190 billion)—and is expected to generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours annually, three times the output of the Three Gorges Dam in Hubei Province, currently the world’s largest.
The Times of India noted that the Yarlung Tsangpo and its tributaries, which flow through China, India and Bangladesh, sustain communities, farmland and ecosystems in northeastern India, but have also caused severe flooding at times. The paper expressed concern that China’s dams, tunnels and power stations along the river could affect downstream water flow.
The Times of India further argued that China itself is aware of the risks of building a mega dam in an earthquake-prone area. Research teams from the China Geological Survey and other institutions have found active faults at the dam site and warned that seismic activity there could easily trigger landslides and rockfalls.
Another news site reports that a paper recently published “in the state-linked, Mandarin-language journal Sedimentary Geology and Tethyan Geology identifies serious geological hazards at the construction site. The geologists conclude that the terrain has a ‘loose structure and weak cohesion’ and warn that fault movement or an earthquake could easily trigger large-scale instability, threatening both the reservoir and surrounding infrastructure….
“Ironically, the latest evidence suggests that the Chinese scientific establishment understands the dangers more clearly than its political leadership appears willing to acknowledge.”
The paper’s authors want things to be redesigned and shored up at the Medog site. There’s also another possibility. Abandon the project.
Also see:
StoptheCCP.org: “Red China’s Power Surplus in Tibet”
