Dri Chu blocked by Landslide in Kham Derge
DHARAMSALA, Oct 11: A massive landslide has hit Derge in the Traditional Tibetan province of Kham and completely blocked the Dri Chu river.
The sudden mountain landslide on both banks of the Dri Chu River in Dege’s Jomda county (Chinese Jiangda) was reported to have occurred at around 4 am (local time) earlier today in the morning and the landslide has rumbled down the mountains and completely blocked the passage of the Dri Chu.
Though there were no immediate reports of the causalities, the debris from the slide has caused the water level to rise rapidly at the rate of 5 centimetres in a minute. The authorities in the region have reportedly carried out an emergency rescue plan and in the region and transferred 287 teachers and students from Boluo Township Primary School and further transferred more than 400 villagers from Bogong Village and Ningba Village.
Dri chu, 6300 km long (3915 mi) is the longest river in Asia and the third-longest in the world after the Nile in Africa and the Amazon in South America. The river flows across Tibet and China before ending in the Pacific Ocean near Shanghai. When it enters China, its the Yangtze, or Chang Jiang (“Long River”) in China.
The ill-advised developmental projects being carried out in Tibet by the Chinese regime at the cost of the fragile Tibetan environment has long been criticized by the activist and rights groups as it threatens the Yellow, Yangtze, Ganges and other rivers that hundreds of millions of people depend on.
Scientists and experts in China have warned that China’s Three Gorges Dam built on the Yangtze River which is the world’s biggest hydropower project may be causing giant landslides in China after it cost $59 billion and 12 years to built it.
