His behaviour outraged many local politicians. In India, a man took a radical decision after dropping his smartphone into the water of the Kherkatta dam, in the state of Chhattisgarh, reports the BBC relayed by BFMTV.

The official's device, worth $1,200 (more than 1,100 euros), fell while he was taking a selfie at the site. After trying everything to retrieve the phone, including sending local divers, the man finally opted for an extreme solution: empty the dam entirely.


In #Chhattisgarh, an officer's I-phone fell into a dam reservoir. Two pumps of 30 horsepower, ran 24 hrs, and pumped out-hold your breath- 21 lakh litres of #water, this water could have irrigated 1,500 acres of land, & this is when "there is severe shortage of water i the area! pic.twitter.com/vBSol7EafS

— Ramandeep Singh Mann (@ramanmann1974) May 26, 2023

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Millions of liters foolishly wasted

The official ordered a diesel pump that operated for several days to drain the millions of liters of water contained in the dam. To justify his decision, the Indian assured that his smartphone contained sensitive government data.

Obviously, once recovered, the device proved unusable after spending too long immersed. Faced with criticism that then flared over the waste of water and energy, the official assured that the water pumped came from the overflow section of the dam and that it was "not usable".



An argument that did not convince the national vice-president of the opposition party. "When people depend on tanker trucks for water during scorching summers, [it] emptied several million liters that could have been used to irrigate 1,500 acres [600 hectares] of land," the politician said.

  • Dam
  • Smartphone
  • India
  • Water
  • Telephone
  • World