Guwahati, Aug 22: After large-scale flooding in Bangladesh, people in Bangladesh have started spreading fake news blaming India’s opening of the Dumbur Dam on the Gumti River in Tripura for the deluge.

Nearly 1.8 million people have been affected in the flood in Bangladesh.

But India has refuted the claims of Bangladesh.

“We have seen concerns being expressed in Bangladesh that the current situation of flood in districts on the eastern borders of Bangladesh has been caused by opening of the Dumbur dam upstream of the Gumti River in Tripura. This is factually not correct. We would like to point out that the catchment areas of Gumti river that flows through India and Bangladesh have witnessed heaviest rains of this year over the last few days,” the Ministry of External Affairs(MHA) said.

It further said, “The flood in Bangladesh is primarily due to waters from these large catchments downstream of the dam. The Dumbur dam is located quite far from the border – over 120 Km upstream of Bangladesh. It is a low height (about 30m) dam that generates power that feeds into a grid and from which Bangladesh also draws 40MW power from Tripura.”

Along the about 120 Km river course, there are three water level observation sites at Amarpur, Sonamura and Sonamura 2.

Heavy rainfall has been continuing since August 21 in the whole of Tripura and adjoining districts of Bangladesh. In the event of heavy inflow, automatic releases have been observed.

Amarpur station is in part of a bilateral protocol under which we are transmitting real-time flood data to Bangladesh.

“Data showing rising trend has been supplied to Bangladesh upto 1500 hrs on 21 August 2024. At 1800 hrs, due to flooding, there was power outage leading to problems of communication. Still, we have tried to maintain communication through other means created for urgent transmission of data,” MHA said.

Floods on the common rivers between India and Bangladesh are a shared problem inflicting sufferings to people on both sides, and requires close mutual cooperation towards resolving them.

“As two countries sharing 54 common cross-border rivers, river water cooperation is an important part of our bilateral engagement. We remain committed to resolving issues and mutual concerns in water resources and river water management through bilateral consultations and technical discussions,” the MHA said.

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