Petition Letter
Greetings,
I am writing this letter on behalf of the conscious faction of humanity to warn you about a man-made disaster that's going to happen in Kerala near future and may endanger the lives of 3.5 million innocent people.
Since pictures speak louder than words, I appeal to all of u to have a look at this video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS0PwCmjIt4
The issue is about a DAM by the name ‘MULLAPERIYAR’, which is built over the 'PERIYAR' river in the Idukki district Kerala, India. It was built 115 years back and it's actual expected life was just for 50 years given by its engineers. Moreover, the dam was built with stone and a mixture of sugar and Calcium oxide.. Also the high hazard this dam poses a direct threat to the lives and property of 35 lakhs people living downstream and also a threat to the mega storage Idukki reservoir. Hence Mullaperiyar dam has no parallels and considering its age, deterioration and high hazard nature, must be decommissioned and a new dam must be built.
World over Masonry gravity dams have failed and a few examples are shown below.
Name Country Year of Failure Height in m
Austin USA 1900 20.7 m
Tigra India 1917 26 m
Khadakwasla India 1961 40 m
Kantalai Sri Lanka 1986 27 m
A doctoral thesis paper from University of New South Wales, Australia ‘An analysis of Concrete and Masonry Dam Failures’ based on a database called ‘CONGDATA’ is put the figure of the total masonry dam failure reported world over as 21. (This research was funded by the dam’s community in Australia as part of Dam Risk Project, together with ARC and the Faculty of Engineering at the University of New South Wales)
• It reveals that the peaks in failures of masonry gravity dams are noted in dams commissioned in the 1870’s to 1890’s and 1910’s to 1920’s.
• It also reveals that dams within the height range of 15 m to 50 m range are failed more than others.
The above findings are relevant as far as the century old Mullaperiyar Dam concerned because it matches both criteria and the probability of failure of this dam is more compared with others.
Idukki district is prone to heavy earthquakes. Mullaperiyar dam is a composite gravity dam which lost of much of its strength due to continuous leaching of lime from its core. This dam is situated in an active fault zone, which makes the dam vulnerable to failure in an earthquake of moderate intensity with an epicentre close to the dam. The study conducted by IIT Roorkee says that the dam will collapse if an earth quake of magnitude 6 or above occurs. The district was jerked with an earthquake on 26th November, the news link is the reference.
News: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mullaperiyar-dam-site-quake-kerala/1/161725.html
News: http://www.asianetindia.com/news/earthquake-34-magnitude-shakes-idukki_301526.html
The dam is developing new cracks with each earthquake. This area has faced 22 earth quakes so far in this year of 2011. The earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 at Nedumkandam (1988), 4.3 at Wadakkanchery (1994), 5.0 at Periyar basin (2000) and the latest earthquake of magnitudes 3.4 on the Richter scale (18th Nov 2011) at Idukki, clearly justify the views of seismologists that the seismic activity in the regions has recently increased and it is necessary to assess the tectonic behaviour of the region to know the seismic safety of Mulla Periyar, Iddukki and other dams. A study carried out by Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkie, indicates that in the event of an earthquake with a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale in the vicinity of the dam could wreck the dam. This dam itself holds more than 443.23 million cubic meters of water. If Mullaperiyar dam failed at that time, Idukki dam downstream of Mullaperiyar would have been got overtopped due to the combined storage crossing 70.5 TMC, which Idukki reservoir cannot accommodate in no way. This will also cause the breaking of the smaller downstream Kulamavu dam. Now the dam may collapse anytime, unleashing the most destructive acts of nature. If this event happens, four districts(Idukki, Kottayam, Ernakulam and Alappuzha) will be vanished from the earth and around 3.5 million people will die.
Please check here the location on google map
Here are few screenshots from the google map
View 1: http://screencast.com/t/WkfAUmrS
View 2: http://screencast.com/t/4mVzuqhYR3s
View 3: http://screencast.com/t/S8EegDUNu
Wikipedia details about the dam
The main problem is, there is no any serious and practical action by our state government or national government or supreme court. The only solution is to make another strong concrete dam parallel to this old dam. Usually it takes too much time for any decisions or order by government and supreme court. There is also an issue with two states about this dam (Kerala and Tamilnadu). That you may please read from Wikipedia page. Of course you can also find many articles about this if you search by keyword "Mullapperiyar" in Google.
Facebook and other social networking websites are being used to mobilise the masses and many people are sharing posts and pages about this to spread the message about the consequences of this unfortunate disaster which is expected to happen in the near future. The people's reaction to the problem is very intense, with frequent strikes. But no solutions till now.
Here are some Facebook pages about this issue:
1. https://www.facebook.com/MULLAPERIYAR
2. http://www.facebook.com/savemullaperiyar
3. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rebuild-mullaperiyar-Dam-Save-Kerala/236066346351
4. http://www.facebook.com/groups/243504442375776/
We want to live, We have to save life of our people, children, animal, plants etc.
Actually we don't know what to do. I write to you because, I think, as a normal citizen of my country I have social responsibility to do something as I can.
So, I hope nothing wrong I did here to make you convinced.
So, please talk to the government of India if you have the authority to do so.
Please let me know if you need any further details from my side
