India rejects reports linking Bangladesh floods to water released from Tripura dam
The flooding was primarily caused by the water from the catchments of the Gumti River downstream following heavy rainfall, Delhi said.
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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...