The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday rejected Bangladeshi media reports that the floods in the districts along the country’s eastern border with India were allegedly triggered by the opening of the Dumbur dam in Tripura.
The reports are “factually not correct” and the dam on the Gumti River is located “quite far from the border – over 120-km upstream of Bangladesh”, the ministry said in a statement.
Reports in Bangladesh claimed that the authorities in Tripura had opened a sluice gate of the Dumbur dam on Wednesday, releasing a lot of waters downstream to Cumilla city across the border through the Gumti River. The inflow of water submerged farmlands in Cumilla and damaged property, they said.
The Dhaka Tribune quoted an official at the Bangladesh Water Development Board’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre as claiming that the authority had not been notified by India about the release of water.
In response, Delhi said that the catchment areas of the Gumti River, which flows through India and Bangladesh, had witnessed the heaviest rainfall of the year in the past two days. The floods in Bangladesh were primarily caused by the water from these catchments downstream of the dam, the external affairs ministry said.
“It is a low height (about 30-metre) dam that generates power that feeds into a grid and from which Bangladesh also draws 40MW [megawatt] power from Tripura,” the ministry said.
Tripura and adjoining districts of Bangladesh have witnessed heavy rainfall since Wednesday. “In the event of heavy inflow, automatic releases have been observed,” the external affairs ministry said.
The 120-km course of the river has three water level observation sites at Amarpur, Sonamura and Sonamura 2. The Amarpur observation station is part of the bilateral protocol under which India transmits real-time flood data to Bangladesh, it said.
The ministry said that the data had been transmitted to authorities in Bangladesh till 3 pm on Wednesday. There were problems in communication after a power outage at 6 pm due to flooding. “Still, we have tried to maintain communication through other means created for urgent transmission of data,” it said.
In the early hours of Wednesday, the district magistrate of Gomati had said that water in the Dumbur dam had accumulated to a critical level and had to be released. “Requesting all citizens concerned and downstream districts of the state to take precautionary measures immediately,” said the district magistrate.
The toll from the floods in Tripura climbed to 10 on Wednesday, The Indian Express reported. More than 34,000 persons have been moved to 346 relief camps across the state.
Water levels of several rivers remained above the danger-mark and extreme danger-mark.
Schools remained closed on Wednesday and Thursday. Colleges were shut on Wednesday.