New Delhi: India on Sunday (August 24) informed Pakistan through diplomatic channels about an overflowing flood situation in a Chenab tributary, prompting Islamabad to issue a warning.

The Pakistani daily The News had first reported that New Delhi had shared an advance alert on possible flooding in the Tawi river in Jammu. It is the first major official contact on water issues between the two neighbours since their four-day military clash following the Pahalgam terror attack earlier this year.

Indian officials confirmed to The Wire that Pakistan had been alerted on Sunday about the high flood situation in the Tawi. In keeping with the post-Pahalgam position, the communication did not take place through the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty mechanism.

“But we did not do it through the Indus water commissioner as the treaty is under abeyance, but through our high commission to their Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” an official source said.

Heavy rainfall has triggered flash-flood-like conditions across parts of Jammu division. Jammu city recorded 190.4 millimetres of rain in 24 hours on Sunday, the second highest single-day total since 1926. Authorities ordered all government and private schools to remain closed on Monday.

Dawn reported that India’s official alert on August 24 recorded a “high flood” level in the Tawi at Jammu, leading to emergency measures downstream in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Pakistan’s Flood Forecasting Division has warned that the Chenab and its tributaries could rise to high or very high flood levels within the next 48 hours. It also noted that Indian reservoirs on the Ravi and Sutlej were already at danger levels.

Since June 26, floods and heavy rains have killed more than 788 people across Pakistan.

The alert comes against the backdrop of bilateral ties, and especially the water-sharing treaty, being in cold storage. On April 23, a day after a terror attack on tourists in Pahalgam, India announced that the Indus Waters Treaty was being placed “in abeyance with immediate effect” until Pakistan “credibly and irrevocably” ends support for cross-border terrorism. Islamabad countered that the treaty contains no provision for unilateral suspension.

The 1960 treaty, brokered by the World Bank, had allocated the three eastern rivers of the Indus system to India and the three western rivers to Pakistan for water use and management.

Two weeks after placing the treaty in abeyance, India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, striking alleged terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir with drones and missiles. Pakistan retaliated, leading to the most intense fighting between the two sides since the Kargil war. The hostilities ended on May 10.

Since then, New Delhi has publicly reiterated at least twice that its position on the treaty remains unchanged. On June 27, the Court of Arbitration, convened at Pakistan’s request, issued a procedural ruling that India’s decision to suspend the treaty would not affect the tribunal’s jurisdiction.

Subsequently, the Hague-based tribunal ruled on the interpretation of key provisions of the treaty, setting limits on India’s design and operation of hydroelectric projects on rivers allocated to Pakistan.

Recalling India’s response to the June 27 ruling, MEA had stated on August 14 that the “Indus Waters Treaty stands in abeyance by a sovereign decision of the Government of India, taken in response to Pakistan’s continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism, including the barbaric Pahalgam attack.”

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