India builds dam over seismic fault. (Environmental Intelligence).

In late November 2001, the Indian government ordered shut the diversion tunnels on the partially completed Tehri Dam, beginning the creation of a giant reservoir on the Bhagirathi River. The dam has been under construction since 1978, and when finished will be the world's seventh highest, at 260 meters. Within days, the rising waters began to flood the 200-year old town of Tehri--which may be completely submerged by late 2002.

In 1980, the project was rejected by the government's own Environmental Appraisal Committee, which found serious flaws in the geological studies and environmental and social assessments conducted for the proposed barrage. Despite repeated expert warnings about the high risk of earthquakes in the Himalayan region where the dam is located, the government's dam-building agency has pressed ahead with construction.

The dam is being built on the edge of the Central Himalayan gap, the fault line that separates India from the rest of the Asian continent. Seismologists warn that if the region experienced an earthquake of 8 or more on the Richter scale, the dam would likely fail. The resulting flood would put millions at risk and submerge a number of downstream cities, including Rishikesh, Hardwar, and Meenut--which is just 55 kilometers east of New Delhi. Many seismologists have recommended that the Indian government abandon the large dam in favor of a series of smaller, less risky hydroelectric projects.

In the last 25 years, about 100,000 people have been displaced by the Tehri dam project. And a recent report from the South Asia Network of Dams, Rivers, and People found that more than 70 percent of the affected rural families still have not been appropriately resettled.