Panic gripped the people living in the downstream areas of the 117-year-old Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala’s mountainous Idukki district as water level in the 8,000-acre reservoir kept rising rapidly on Tuesday even as heavy rain pounding the State since Sunday abated a bit after wreaking havoc and leaving 16 dead in the district alone on a single day, Monday.
Water level in the Mullaperiyar reservoir situated on Kerala’s border with Tamil Nadu rose to 134.7 feet by Tuesday evening from Monday’s level of 133.8 feet while the maximum allowable level was 136 feet. Tamil Nadu is drawing the entire water from the reservoir to irrigate its farmlands as per a 127-year-old pact which is currently under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who visited Cheeyappara in Idukki district where a massive landslide killed six persons on Monday, said the death toll due to rain disasters in the district could go up further while personnel from the NDRF and the armed forces carried out searches in the mud deposit in the ravine to see if anybody had been trapped in it.
The mud deposited on the road at Cheeyappara between Neryamangalam and Adimali on the Kochi-Dhanushkodi route was removed and traffic was partially restored by Tuesday morning. Rain abated a bit by late Tuesday morning but all the low-lying areas in Idukki district remained submerged as shutters of several dams were still open.
Reports from Munnar, famous hill resort, said that life was yet to return to normal though water had started receding in Old Munnar which had remained cut off for over 48 hours. Revenue and police authorities said that they were yet to learn about the situation in several far-flung places in the district including Idamalakkudi, the remote tribal region.
Officials said it would take several days for the situation in the district to return to normal. A landslide occurred at Kulamavu, lying adjacent to the giant Idukki hydel reservoir, on Monday night but no loss of life had been reported. However, this was no reason for relief to the people there as the reservoir had already been filled almost up to capacity.
Elsewhere in Kerala, water level in rivers showed signs of receding on Monday but low-lying areas were still under water. The runway of the Kochi International airport, closed on Monday morning following water-logging, opened on Tuesday afternoon. However, people living in low-lying areas were not feeling relieved due to forecast of heavy rains till Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister, who said that the situation could deteriorate further if the rain continued, told an all-party meeting that primary warning had already been sounded to the people living in the downstream reaches of the 117-year-old surki concrete dam at Mullaperiyar which had already developed cracks and leaks at many spots.
The flow of water into the Mullaperiyar reservoir on Tuesday was put at 4,000 cubic feet per second but Tamil Nadu was unable to draw more than 1,400 cubic feet a second. “At this rate, it may not take many hours for the water level to reach the maximum level mark of 136 feet,” said a top official of the Kerala Water Resources Department.
When water in the Mullaperiyar reservoir rises above the 136-feet level, it will start flowing through the shutters to river Periyar to rush to the Idukki hydel reservoir in which water was presently staying at just 14 feet below the maximum capacity level of 2,408.5 feet.
“This dam is a curse on us. We are condemned to live in its shadow. We don’t know whether it may break but
those who know tell us it won’t hold for long,” said Kuriechen, a 52-year-old settler farmer living in Vallakkadavu, a small town situated below the Mullaperiyar dam. “As the water level in the dam rises by a millimeter our hearts tend to miss a beat,” he said.