Close on the heels of the landslides and deluge in Wayanad that claimed more than 400 lives and devoured 300 houses, a disaster of higher magnitude is all set to befall on the State of Kerala.
The Mullaperiyar dam built across River Periyar and dating back to 130 years is on the verge of collapse and this will wipe out the entire population in five districts of the State. Though the dam is situated in Kerala, the entire water in the catchment area is drawn by Tamil Nadu which shouts from all rooftops that Mullaperiyar dam is safe. But experts in dam construction and safety disagree.
Though Tungabhadra dam is in Karnataka, the news that one of its gates getting washed away because of the snapping of the chain link by the floodwaters has jolted people in five districts of Kerala. Tungabhadra dam built in 1953 and Mullaperiyar in Kerala, built 130 years ago have a lot of similarities. Both are built with a combination of surki, mortar, mud and limestone making them the last surviving non-cement dams in India.
The Mullaperiyar dam, constructed across River Periyar in Kerala with the sole purpose of providing drinking and irrigation water to the four districts in Tamil Nadu has become a modern day water bomb. People living in the districts of Idukki, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha,Kottayam and Ernakulam would be drowned in the deluge that would occur once the dam collapses. It can happen any time now because the dam has outlived its utility,” said P C George, a seven-time MLA of the State who is waging a battle with the authorities to construct a new dam. George, in his 35-year-long service as a law maker and chairman of the petition committee of the legislative Assembly had submitted three comprehensive reports to the authorities. “But the governments of the day did not take any action on these reports,” George told The Pioneer in the aftermath of Wayanad tragedy. He said the impact of the collapse of Mullaperiyar Dam would be similar to the repercussions of1,000 Wayanad landslides. “The old and children do not sleep well even for a single day as they fear that the dam would down any time. It is atop the Western Ghats and you cannot imagine the intensity of the water bursting out of the dam. There will not be any time for evacuation and rescue missions,” he said. Mullaperiyar Dam is 53.67 metre tall and 365.85 metre long.
“The active capacity of the dam s10.56 thousand million cubic feet (TMC ft). Geologists have cautioned us that the dam is vulnerable to high intensity earthquakes as the fault line passes through the reservoir,” said PNS Namboodiri, former revenue official in Kottayam district. While the Tamil Nadu government scoffed at reports about a possible collapse of the dam, it went many steps ahead in opposing the Indian Nutrino Observatory at Madurai under the pretext that the fault line passes through the area earmarked for the proposed project. But the fault line is dangerously close to the Mullaperiyar dam. Seismic experts and geologists have warned that the dam made of surki and mortar has outlived its utility and should be decommissioned at the earliest.
Dr A K Gosain of IIT Delhi who had led a team of experts to study the safety aspects of the dam has called for the construction of a new dam in 2011 itself. “I don't say that Mullaperiyar will collapse tomorrow. But the dam is not safe from the point of view of a hydrologist,” he had told this newspaper. More than 40 lakh people in the five districts mentioned above would perish once Mullaperiyar collapses. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin's act of donating Rs five crore towards the Chief Minister's disaster relief fund is being seen in Kerala as a ploy to buy silence from the State Government.
“The 8100 acre land on which the dam has been built belongs to Kerala and the dam was constructed with money given by the State of Travancore. Tamil Nadu is like having the cake and eating it too,” said George.
