Heavy rainfall forecast trembles Kerala once again

Heavy rainfall forecast trembles Kerala once again

         The Meteorological department has once again warned of heavy rainfall in the coastal state starting from coming Sunday thus giving the people of the state a rude shock who are literally trembling out of fear,remembering the holocaust during August,again due to unheard downpour.

The state government has already issued a Red alert to the fishermen from venturing into the seas during this time and has also enforced a ban on tourists visiting scenic spots on high altitude regions.Thrissur,Idukki and Palghat are the three  districts which are once again under the severe threat of facing the wrath of the rain fury.

During the unprecedented rainfall in August about 400 people were feared dead while nearly 10 lakh people were estimated to have been adversely affected.According to sources in the state government the loss estimated due to the calamity is 40,000 crores as per the memorandum submitted to the Union government seeking financial assistance to handle the adverse situation.

Among the 14 districts of the state five of them,namely Thrissur,Ernakulam,Alappuzha,Pathanamthitta and Idukki were badly affected while partial damage was also reported from Palghat and Wayanad districts.Out of the 44 rivers in Kerala,all but three originate in the Western Ghats and 41 flow westward and the remaining three towards the east.In comparison to the many mighty rivers found in many other states the rivers in the state are small,both in terms of length and breadth.

Thanks to the close proximity of Arabian Sea and the hilly terrain,most of the west flowing rivers do so in high speed to join the sea in no time.A majority of these rivers can be termed as seasonal as they are found to be alive only during the rainy season and suddenly become rivulets and most of them also vanish in summer.

In spite of abundance of rivers,interestingly the state has many departments related to water like Coastal Shipping and Inland Navigation,Fisheries and Water Resources but no such as Irrigation Department.Due to rivers aplenty and the hilly terrain there seems to be no necessity for a separate department for irrigation here.

Thanks to the seasonal rivers there isn't much infrastructure on ground like dedicated canals or any Minor Irrigation department to take care of such things throughout the year.But they have a top priority for the Power generation department and the main source for generating electricity is water.

Since there isn't any Irrigation department and but for Paddy farmers most of the remaining Tea,Areacanut and Rubber planters have their own sources in the form of tube wells to take care of their water needs for commercial crops.

But the water stored in all the dams and many of them on steep elevated areas on the mountainous range are basically meant for manufacturing electricity in surplus only to trade it to the neighboring Karnataka state.For the August disaster this greed of selling power and storing water to the brim is said to be the main culprit.

The crest gates of 32 dams were opened almost at the same time and before doing so the high ranking officials of the Hydel power production wing kept themselves busy hoping to mint around 500 crores by the way of power generation.

And they at last took a decision to release water not with the thought of forgetting power generation but to ensure the safety of dams which otherwise would have washed away in the incessant rains!.In fact these officials had started a rehearsal of discharging water three days earlier prior to the actual release on a trial basis not to avoid the catastrophe but to ascertain and ensure that the crest gates of the dams were functional!

What more evidence do you need to come to a conclusion that the Kerala calamity was nothing but a man made disaster for the greed of making money when it rained like never before in the recent past.

According to some officials of Power department who preferred to remain anonymous for obvious reasons around 16 lakh liters of water was released from the dam per second.Due to such heavy discharge of water suddenly and that too in the middle of night without proper and enough prior precautions enough damage was done to lives and properties.

Alappuzha district also renowned for it's world famous snake boats race remained submerged for many days.The adjoining Kuttanad region well known as the rice bowl of the state was still inundated until a few days back and the Paddy farmers were found working day and night to pump out the water standing at a height of few feet in the wet lands.

Kuttanad region is six feet below the sea level and slight heavy rains is bound to maroon the whole area.In fact the Paddy fields going invisible due to heavy rainfall and sea waters gushing to the low lying fields is nothing new to the farmers there but the wetlands taking a shape of the sea itself for many days was perhaps for the first time in their lives.

However a silver line of hope among these Paddy growers is that they are hopeful of again sowing the grain this month and also a bumper harvest later.Paddy grown here is also sought after by many traders who flock here from across the country during seasons'.

Since Pampa, the holy river also got swollen and was found overflowing the main bridge connecting the international pilgrimage center Shabarimala was washed away but the temple atop the hillock remained unaffected.

This year's Shabarimala pilgrimage season is yet to begin and a temporary bridge has come up in the place of a permanent one and the temple authorities are confidant of having a new bridge much before this year's pilgrims rush begins.

According to Radhakrishnan Narippatta,Assistant Editor,Thozilvartha,employment weekly of Mathrubhumi group of publications, heavy rains,landslides,release of water of such quantum and casualties to this alarming proportion have taken place in Kerala for the first time.

Prof Gopalkrishnamurthy,retired professor of History at the Sri Shankara College at Kalady,birth place of Adi Shankara regrets:The one in Kerala is nothing else but man made disaster.Kalady was under one and a half to two meters deep water and the government agencies were ill equipped with enough rescue materials and personnel to address the challenge.

Irrespective of whom you happen to meet in Kerala today everyone is uniformly unequivocal in concluding that the August holocaust is nothing else but man made and much more due to the shameless greed of the Power generation department officials to make money while the water flows!

-Manohar Yadavatti