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Kerala floods: The ghost of past environment policy returns
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SME Times News Bureau | 17 Aug, 2018
Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 17 (IANS/Mongabay) Kerala has been facing
unusually high rainfall since early August, which has led to statewide
floods taking several lives and causing severe damage. According to the
government, there hasnt been a flood of this scale in last 90 years. The
death toll as of August 16, stands at 114.
As per information
from the officials, in the past one week itself more than 53,000 people
have been moved to 439 relief camps across the state. A total of
143,220 people have been living in 1,790 relief camps all through this
year's monsoon, in which Kerala has received an unusually high amount of
rainfall.
According to a report from the National Disaster
Management Authority, 130 people have died in Kerala this monsoon from
May 29 to July 19. Adding to this, the deaths from the August rainfall,
the death toll for Kerala is 217 as of August 16.
There has been
mobilisation of resources to deal with the floods. In a a press release,
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said: "As per the primary
assessment, the state has incurred a loss of Rs 8,316 crore (Rs 83
billion). Kerala is facing its worst flood in history after 1924. Ten
out of 14 districts were badly affected. Twenty-seven dams in the state
were opened due to water rise. Thirty-seven people died in just four
days. There were mudslides and landslides in 211 different places across
the state. Central forces, National Disaster Response Force and all the
state forces are full time engaged in rescue mission at different
districts. More than 20,000 houses were totally ruined, about 10,000
kilometres of public roads were also destroyed. The state will have to
bear the loss of this disaster for a long time."
Union Minister
of Home Affairs Rajnath Singh, after his visit to the flood hit areas of
the state termed the situation of Kerala "very serious". He also
announced an immediate relief of an additional Rs 1 billion rupees.
Idukki dam opened after 26 years
Though
27 small and big dams were opened across Kerala in this crisis, the
opening of the Idukki dam's shutters at Cheruthoni gained media and
public attention. Idukki is the biggest arch dam in Asia and the last
time this dam's shutters were opened was in 1992.
In the wake of
the heavy rains this year, the water level in the dam had reached almost
2,400 feet, just a few feet lower than its maximum capacity of 2403
feet. On August 9, following a warning to the public, the officials
opened shutters of the dam, after 26 years.
It was first time in
the history that all five shutters of the dam were opened. After the
shutters were opened it cause rapid swelling of Periyar river that flows
through Idukki and Ernakulam districts. Nearly 700,000 litres of water
per second was discharged from the Idukki dam into the Periyar river.
"Because
of torrential rains and landslides, 18 relief camps have been started
in different parts of Idukki district and almost 1,000 people have been
relocated to these camps. Opening of the shutters of Cheruthoni dam due
to increased water level of Idukki dam has also resulted in people being
moved to camps. We have taken enough measures to provide all the
necessary facilities for the affected people," Idukki district collector
D. Balamurali said.
Environmentalists point at poor policy decisions
Most
of the regions impacted by this monsoon were once classified as
ecologically-sensitive zones (ESZs) by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert
Panel (WGEEP), also known as the Gadgil Committee.
The report was
crafted by a team headed by Madhav Gadgil, ecologist and founder of the
Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science,
Bengaluru. According to environmentalists, the committee's
recommendations were strong enough to protect the sensitive Western Ghat
region.
The committee had suggested that 140,000 kilometres of
the Western Ghats be classified in three zones as per the requirement of
environmental protection in the areas. In some areas the committee
recommended strong restrictions on mining and quarrying, use of land for
non forest purposes, construction of high rises etc. The report was
first submitted to the government in 2011.
But the Kerala government rejected the committee report and did not adopt any of its recommendations.
Speaking
to various regional media, Madhav Gadgil has said that irresponsible
environmental policy is to blame for the recent floods and landslides in
Kerala. He also called it a "manmade calamity". He said that the
committee report had recommended to protect the resources with the
cooperation of local self governments and people, but those
recommendations were rejected. He also pointed out that quarrying is a
major reason for the mudslides and landslides.
Other
environmentalists also point fingers at the extensive quarrying,
mushrooming of high rises as part of tourism and illegal forest land
acquisition by private parties as major reasons for the recent calamity.
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