Kerala, a state located in the southern part of India has nearly 600 km of Arabian sea shoreline.
CURRENT SITUATION
Kerala has been suffering from a gigantic rainfall which is around 2086mm. The death toll is around 450 and its increasing day by day. More than 8 lakh people are in relief camps, around 8000 houses has been washed away and 26000 are damaged badly. Many people are stranded on roads which are covered by water and don’t have any place to go.
The Southern Naval Command at Kochi has rescued number of people stranded in the flood areas of Kerala and they named this operation as “Operation Madad” and Indian Army also launched a major rescue and relief operation by the name of “Sahyog”.
WHY IT HAPPENED?
There is a reservoir called Idukki Reservoir and it has 3 dams :-
a) Idukki Dam
b) Cheruthoni Dam
c) Kulamavu Dam
Together, the three dams have created an artificial lake that is 60kmsq. in area. On August 10 2018, all five shutters of the Cheruthoni dam were raised for the first time in history with the water level in dam exceeding the 2400 feet mark. The reason behind it was that, the capacity of it was 2403 feet and the water level touched 2399 feet because of heavy rainfall. The administration was alarmed very late as they were not accepting this kind of rainfall at this particular time or season. All the 5 gates were opened within the period of just 26 hours and the gates sent down 7.5 lakh liters of water per second to the Periyar river.
Around the Periyar river there were millions of people who were living there from a very long time and it was a densely populated area as Kerala has the third highest population density in India.Half a decade ago some communities warned to not let people live here, settled their lives but government rejected it and take it as a opportunity to make a living here.
At present the loss is around Rs 19,512 crore and property worth over Rs 8,000 crore. Home minister has started a relied fund where you can donate your share if you like, you can donate it by paytm aswell.
Some other reasons :-
a) Rapid Urbanisation
b) Number of Dams, their management
c) Deforestation
d) Lack of paddy fields.
30 years back, Kerala has 8 lakh hectares of paddy field land which is now roughly 1.5 lakh hectares of paddy field. Paddy fields, which had the threshold to absorb water, has been converted into urban infrastructure.
THE DAMS ARE FLOODED WITH PLASTIC AND ALL SORTS OF GARBAGE, LOOKS LIKE MOTHER NATURE RETURN THE GIFTS WITH INTEREST.