Dams, a tale of lurking disaster

KOCHI: A documentary on “Dams- The Lethal Water Bodies” by Sohan Joy, director of DAM999, a Hollywood movie, explains how the outburst of dams can destroy the world, if no proper measure for safety is taken. The documentary, which has won many international awards world wide, was presented at the seminar on Disaster Management Strategies and Tactics held at the Cochin University of Science and Technology(CUSAT). “It has been scientifically proven that the power of a dam is 180 times more than that of the nuclear bomb which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” says the documentary. Many dams in India have exceeded the decommissioning period and Mullaperiyar is the biggest example. According to the documentary, the capacity of the Mullaperiyar dam is similar to that of the Banqiao dam in China which was destroyed in 1975 killing millions of people, giving it a tag as one of the greatest manmade disasters in history. But the Mullaperiyar dam has a higher potential of destruction as it is almost 7 times more than that of the Banqiao dam. The water level of the Mullaperiyar dam is rising during every monsoon season in Kerala. If no alternative step is taken to build another safe dam, four districts- Idukki, Ernakulam, Kottayam and Allapuzha- are at the receiving end of a huge disaster, the documentary says.