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Kerala Floods: Ecologists say 'development' led to disaster

The data from the Indian Meteorological Department shows that Kerala received 2,087.67 mm of rain from June 1 to August 15—a departure of nearly 30 per cent from the 3,368 mm rain in 1924.

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Even as Kerala is facing its worst ever monsoon floods, environmentalists call it as a man-made disaster citing the government's failure on the environmental policy front. They attributed the devastating floods and landslides to the extensive quarrying, mining, mushrooming of high-rises on the hillside as part of tourism and illegal encroachment of forestland by private parties.

All the 14 districts in the state have been placed under red alert, after 35 out of the 39 dams including Mullaperiyar, Cheruthoni, part of Idukki reservoir and Idamalayar had to be opened at the same time for the first time. The water level crossed dangerous levels which led to flooding in the downstream areas.

People were stranded after several areas in the hilly districts were cut off due to landslides.

The data from the Indian Meteorological Department shows that Kerala received 2,087.67 mm of rain from June 1 to August 15—a departure of nearly 30 per cent from the 3,368 mm rain in 1924.

Environmentalists cited the extensive quarrying as the major reasons for the landslides. In a recent study, scientists TV Sajeev and CJ Alex of the Kerala Forest Research Institute found that there were 5,924 big, medium and small quarries in Kerala. Despite the Kerala High Court directing to stop quarrying in the land assigned for dwelling, cultivation in the reserve forest, the quarrying activities continue unabashedly, they said in the study.

Interestingly, most of the flood-affected districts including Idukki and Wayanad were once classified as ecologically-sensitive zones by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel headed by Madhav Gadgil, founder of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. The committee, in its report in 2011, recommended strong restrictions on mining and quarrying, use of land for non-forest purposes, construction of high rises and among others but the Kerala government rejected the report. Speaking to Malayalam media, Madhav Gadgil said that irresponsible environmental policy is to blame for the recent floods and landslides in Kerala. He also pointed out that quarrying is a major reason for the mudslides and landslides.

"Major storage dams of Kerala like Idukki and Idamalayar, by releasing water when Kerala is facing floods due to widespread heavy rainfall, are adding to the flooding misery of Kerala. This could have been avoided if the dam operators had started releasing water in advance rather than waiting for dams to fill up," Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People told DNA. He said that the impact of flooding due to the release of surplus water from Idukki dam could have been less if the Kerala government had released the water between July 31 and August 8 when the rain was subdued.

The dam which was commissioned in 1975 had filled up only twice in 1981 and 1992 but during the North East Monsoon in October-December not so early in the SW Monsoon, he said. He said that the dam operation should not be focused on filling it up at the first available instance.

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