Kerala Floods 2018. A Brief on Reasons, Loses and a Comparison with Great Flood of 99

Gods Own Country just met the biggest flood in its history. The monsoons of 2018 became a nightmare to the people of Kerala. The Year of 2018 is going to be marked in the history of Kerala, for the biggest flooding the state faced in last 100 years. Many survivors who happened to be in the middle of the floods are not yet back from the trauma and loses it created.

Kerala Floods18 - Devastating Losses

As of now, nearly 491 lost lives even after all these extreme precautions taken by Govt and authorities. nearly 15 people went missing in the floods, and are still missing. At the peak of the situation, nearly 14.5 Lakh people were displaced into 3000 refugee camps. This has now reduced to around 3.5 lakh and even less as the water started withdrawing from many of the places.

The initial loss for the state is roughly estimated as 20,000 Crores INR, but in the post-flood estimation this has shot up to, literally doubled to 40K Crores. Kerala will be taking time to come back from this biggest south Indian natural disaster.

kerala flood damage,flood damaged house in kerala, idukki due to soil piping
A new house cracking off as the land is deforming. Geologist suspects its due to the soil-piping phenomenon happening in these areas due to the Extreme heavy rains.

Most of the affected lost their houses in landslides and the floods. Many got their homes partially damaged with cracks due to deformations in the terrains. Soil piping became a phenomenon in some areas of Idukki district. Cracks are seen across some mountain regions of Idukki.

There are some extreme geographic phenomenons in Idukki District. Its seen in a place the whole property, along with trees and houses in 10 hectares of land moving down feet by feet due to soil piping from the deeper layers of earth.

Water expelled in nearby places is all muddy in nature, so the cause is suspected to be drastic soil erosion in the deeper internal layers of earth. This particular area has moved down by 20 feet now and it keeps happening. In a few places like Ankamali, whole houses slid down through mountain slopes to the lower areas as the soil holding the basements washed off.

Few of the buildings got their complete ground floor buried underground level due to all these unnatural topographical behavior of earth.
landslips of land slides in kerala floods 2018
Acres of Farmlands, Roads, Houses all got devastated in the Extreme Rains and floods. Kerala Government has to plan on permanent relocation and rehabilitation of thousands of Families from the risky areas of Idukki District.
A few have their home intact but all their belongings got spoiled in the muddy water. Many dead bodies of domesticated animals are laying and floating around now. A tiring cleaning process to be done before people can return to their homes. All the flood-affected homes are filled with Mud and poisonous reptiles as of now. Snake bites becoming common in many areas.
Floods brought mud in houses, kerala 2018 floods damages
Leftover After The Floods!!, Mud and Debris inside Homes. Lots of reptiles have sneaked in and snake bites have become common. Kerala Government with the help of government machinery and voluntary relief works organizations is in the process of cleaning out these mess brought by Floods. In many of the houses, mud is knee deep. Some of the houses are partially submerged in Sand and soil came with water.
Rescue operations have completed and Govt started concentrating on the next step of taking care of the relief camps and resuming peoples lives. Many of the relief camps are expected to stay longer and Kerala Govt is even planning to get rented homes for a few if needed. Few of the families who were not in worst affected areas started returning to homes from the rescue camps as the water receded.

Water started withdrawing, but not in a few places like Kuttanadu. Kuttanadu as its laying below the sea level, the water levels are not receding as expected (it used to recede faster in usual monsoon floods, but this time it is staying longer).

Flood situations in these areas are not much covered in media, and most of the families got moved to refugee camps in Changanacherry etc recently as Kuttanadu got flooded for a second time this monsoon season. Also few from the press lost life in Kuttanadu while trying to cover the flood situations. Their boat got capsized in some wild undercurrents and unfortunately few of the reporters drowned.
Aerial view of Kerala floods, Flooded Cochin airport and aluva township
Kerala Floods 2018, Aerial Views. Aluva township, Cochin Airport everything submerged. Cochin airport, the biggest airport of Kerala which ferries more than 60 percent of air traffic is now closed. Authorities working hard on its reopening since the floods. And it is open as of now after the relentless effort of nearly 15 days.

Scariest Flooding Happened in Kerala after the great floods of 99

2018 Kerala Floods had two part, the first phase started in July and somewhat alleviated towards July last week. Deaths happened was around 30 in this first phase. The worst affected region was Kuttanadu and Malabar area.

Many landslides happened in Malabar area, Kuttanadu got flooded as usual in the monsoons. Wayanadu also got affected this time. As the rains reduced a bit towards July end, the expectation was this is the end of this year's monsoon floods, but!

The second week of August 2018, distress calls started from all over Kerala as the monsoons reached its peak again in that week, giving continuous extreme high rains. Amount of rescue forces we had often felt inadequate.

Even the safest places started submerging in a matter of hours. The number of people getting isolated started increasing, as water levels started rising in an alarming manner and without giving much time to act.
Vehicles damaged in Wayanadu ghat road landslips, Kerala floods 2018
Landslip Happened in Wayanadu Ghat Roads. Wayanadu district got badly affected again. This time all access to Wayanadu from rest of Kerala got cut off, and the only option was through the air, or from Karnataka, which was also taken down later due to floods and landslips in Karnataka and Kudagu area.

Widespread landslides started, casualties started reporting as the Rains became strong. 80 landslides got reported in total, 90 percent of this in a day or two of the extreme rains, the situation started to worsen as hours passed.

Authorities averted many fatalities by shifting many families staying in Risky geographically unstable terrains, still, a few fatalities happened. The dates from 14th to 20 of August Kerala saw the worst of 2018 monsoon season.

Natural calamities happened before also in Kerala but nothing can be compared with this. This time it looked like the situation will go out of hands if not enacted in the right manner gathering the right amount of rescue forces.

Reservoir catchments started swelling fast and the authorities had no way other than releasing waters to the downstream, which had to be done systematic, calculating the risks. District wise red alert went off, but in a short span of time entire districts of Kerala had to be put under Red Alert. A statewide red alert is for the first time in the entire history of Kerala.

Kerala Govt was requesting for adding up rescue teams and equipment, but the requested amount of forces were not sanctioned as quick as needed apart from NDRF who were already on the ground, but a higher number of platoons was needed. Maybe it took a little time for the central govt to understand the criticality of the situation after which swift movement of defense forces also started to happen.

The Police, Fireforce, NDRF, Army, Navy and Airforce, all were becoming a part of rescue operations gradually, still, everything looked inadequate as the monsoon rains grew strong. Kerala Govt had to think of utilizing all possible practical rescue options.
Tiled house submerging in flood water, Kerala floods
There is a House, Fully Submerged - a Little more time given for the Roof tiles by nature!
In many of the places people took shelter on top floors of multi-storeyed houses, but even that appeared unsafe as the water levels were increasing alarmingly even to submerge two-story buildings in a few hours. Many have to reach to the terrace to stay safe, but people in those houses which were single storied, or houses with a closed terrace-access were in ultimate danger, many of them rushed to bigger houses nearby leaving all their possessions.

Violent floodwater currents and congested village approach roads made the rescue force's access impossible in many places. Airlifts were the only possibility in these places.
House submerging in flood water from pamba river in Ranni, Kerala floods 2018
House getting submerged in around 3 hours in Ranni Pathanamthitta District
District of Wayanadu got completely cut off from Kerala, and more places were getting disconnected due to widely overflowing rivers and landslips. NDRF platoons had to be flown down to Wayanadu by the air force, all the means to access by roads got destructed.

Nelliyampathy in Palaghat district became inaccessible due to landslides, one and only bridge towards Nelliyampathy got washed away by the river. Nearly 3000 people living there in the tribal areas got isolated.

All the ghat roads of Kerala got destroyed in landslides. Munnar, the hill station of Kerala got isolated. Neelakurinji season is starting in Munnar. looks like this year it is going to be a loss for the tourism Industry here.

Now overall Kerala is facing a massive infrastructure collapse. Roads Bridges everything, more than 10000 Km of roads washed away or cracked off. Around 250 Bridges got damaged, swept away or weakened by the flooding rivers.
Road washed away by raging flood water, Kerala floods 2018
Road Taken by Flooding River - Few places people in cars got washed away with Bridges in flash floods.
More than 10000 Km s of Roads need to be rebuilt now. Many Roads and bridges were waiting for inauguration after the relentless effort by the government on improving the states transportation infrastructure. All washed away in floods now. The government with its people hand in hand now need to rebuild Kerala, but it needs huge Financial help.

Red alert was declared in all the districts of Kerala during the peak of rains. Obviously, Kerala was going through one of the worst natural disasters in its history.

Kerala Floods 2018 vs 1924

The current scenario is different from the time of the great flood of 99. Now Kerala has more dams to regulate the sudden fury of rivers which occurs in case of heavy rainfall or cloudburst.

In the year 1924, the only dam in the course of Periyar was said to be the Mullaperiyar dam (Highest and oldest Surky gravity Dam, still not decommissioned), which was not at all enough to control floods which were common in Periyar basin during each monsoon.

Due to the increased number of dams, better communication technologies, and alert mechanisms, we are able to alleviate the casualties this time when compared to the great flood of 99 in which the loss was beyond a proper assessment, both in terms of properties and human life. Human casualties that time was approximated to more than 50k.

In floods of 99, even a hill got washed off completely. The present hill station of Munnar is said to be not the actual Munnar which got completely destroyed in the flood of 99. The Munnar you see now is New Munnar.

Its presumed that in many places water levels didn't come up like the Great Floods of 99 this time, but if you consider most of the river beds are at least 50 feets deeper than it was in 1927, the amount of water in this flood is much huge than what was seen in the great floods of 99.

The floods of 99 showed great fury just because the flow of water was uncontrollable to humans by any means. The time to evacuate was never given by nature at that time and no alerts are given as the communication mechanisms were very limited.

Right now we are able to predict the rains, measure the flow in Rivers, and regulate them using the Dams which enabled us to control the floods and life loss. Above all the communication methods are far better now which enables better coordination and timely alerts when it comes to rescue and prevention of mishaps.

Given all that, its said to be very difficult to predict Extreme weather conditions like the one happened just now, which is expected to happen once in a century. Scientists are expecting the Wet seasons to be wetter and dry seasons to be drier from now on. These changes are related to the Earth's surface temperature rise which is often happening due to human activities.

2018 Kerala Floods, casualties in Landslips.

Fireforce fighter trying to rescue a kid trapped in landslip, Kerala monsoon floods 2018
Fireforce On Rescue after a Landslip
Running to the Ambulance with a life! Kerala's Fireforce unit Driver Jinesh rushing with the kid who was trapped in a landslip happened over a house. Unfortunately, he couldn't save this life.

The Kids were embraced by their Father, seen covered in a mosquito net on their bed when fire-force removed the mud and debris. Only 2 in this family survived. Two kids, parents, and their grandmother passed away, as their house got washed away in the landslide by midnight.

All the people in the rescue front faced many heartbreaking incidents like this, and it seems Kerala Fireforce saw the most as they were relentlessly working for the people getting trapped in Landslips majorly in Idukky area where media coverage was also less in times.

Many incidents and rescue operations were not captured as there were isolated areas in Idukky, Wayanadu, Chengannur etc where media and people couldn't reach but only the rescue forces.
Cars and trucks trapped in landslips, Kerala floods 2018 damages.
Landslips into the Vehicle traffic on Kerala State Highways. This is nearby the Kuthiran tunnel project of Kerala.
One of the new and major Tunnel project of Kerala- The Kuthiran Tunnel got damages due to landslips. Entire Kerala states traffic came to a halt for days due to numerous accidents and waterlogging in most of the state and national highways.
Flooding River and Bridge, Kerala Flood snaps
Bridge Under Threat by the Furiously Flooding River
Bridges got closed for traffic sooner or later as the river water levels rose alarmingly to touch the bridge spans and in many places bridges got submerged, damaged or washed away.

Reasons for Kerala Floods - An alarming change in Rainfall Patterns.

So what is the reason for floods in Kerala now?.

It is said to be the drastic change in the pattern of rains. From July 1st to August 18th, the state received 2344 mm rainfall, which is five to 6 times the annual average of many other states in India.

Even the previous yearly rainfall data of Kerala is like 2664.9 mm, which is only marginally higher than what the state received in the last two months. 

In short, the state is receiving rainfalls classified in the Extreme high category in a short span of 2 months. The soil is not capable to hold this much rainwater and it resulted in many major and minor Landslips.

The catchment areas of dams were receiving Extreme high rainfalls. Rainfalls between 350 to 400 mm a day in some areas of Idukki district, is said to be the highest for a day even if you check the previous 50 years of Rainfall data. This is an alert on changing weather patterns for the coming years too.

Rainfalls combined with water from numerous landslips contributed an extremely high amount of water into the river streams which made the river streams grow wide and violent. Landslides in the catchment areas swelled the water levels in dams.

Slit increased in Dams due to landslides in catchment areas. Still, the sudden release of water into rivers was avoided by controlled discharge from the reservoirs. Data shows only an amount of water is released from the dams than what was received in the catchment areas.

Water released from landslips in the reservoir downstream areas were uncontrollable and was getting added up with the water released from Dams. This resulted in rising the river water levels rapidly. This happened in the case of Pamba river of Pathanamthitta district also.

Closing off the Dam Shutters became a no-option as the heavy rains continued to persist for a longer period and the inflows were increasing drastically into dams.

Inability to predict coming up extreme weather and many of the weather forecasting station failures noticed across Kerala showed the need to completely revamp the systems which are being followed.

These changes in weather patterns are all connected to the global warming phenomenon and is likely to repeat as per Experts. The temperatures of landmasses are observed to increase in recent years which is catalyzing these extreme weather changes.

Idukki township aerial view as the dams got opened, kerala floods 2018
Cheruthoni Dam shutters opened. Asia's Highest arch Dam of Idukky has no shutters but is regulated in Cheruthoni gravity Dam.

More reason for Floods - Apart from the Extreme rains, Unexpected large Inflow into Kerala's Dams occurred from Upstream Reservoirs.

Idukky Dam got opened for the first time in the last 26 years, yes the primary reason was the rains. But what put authorities to a situation that the 5th shutter if Idukky dam also has to be opened?! This never happened in this Dam's history.

The water level rarely neared the maximum capacity of the Idukki dam in previous years, and the dam opened last time in 1992. But this year all the 5 shutters of Idukky dam had to be opened to nullify the huge inflows caused by multiple reasons.

What added up to the inflow into dams other than the Rains?. Obviously, it is the unscientific opening of upstream dam under Tamilnadu without anyt prior alerts. This made the situation worse.

Mullaperiyar dam shutters opened up when the water level went above 142, the max limit of this Dam. The amount of water that is going to be released into idukky dam from Mullaperiyar was not communicated to KSEB, and was done in haste as the Rains became stronger. Some unconfirmed reports came in media that, the digital water level meter of Mullaperiyar counted more than 143 feet and got turned off at that point. Its allowed level is only 142 Feet.

As the inflow became huge into Idukky reservoir, the engineers had to open up the shutters more and also the 5th shutter to avoid damage to the Dams in Idukky. If this was not done it could become fatal to the very existence of the Cheruthoni gravity dam adjacent to Idukki Arch Dam.

Not only Idukky Dam,  nearly 35 of total 39 dams under KSEB got opened. Incessant rains which started pouring unexpectedly challenged authorities to its peak. It is said to be 83 dams all over the state and most of them had to be opened to control the water levels.

In Idukki project, the power generation was increased so that water dispersed into the already flooding Periyar basin can be reduced as much as possible by diverting a part of it into the Moovatupuzha basin through the powerhouse.

Things went really bad in Chengannur when the River Pamba and Achankovil started swelling up due to heavy rains inside the forest. Overnight the townships of Chengannur and Pandalam became part of a flowing River which grew beyond the borders.

So is the opening of dams alone that caused the floods?. Was it possible to avoid the floods by giving flood cushioning with an early lowering of water levels in Dams?. As per data, the water released from Dams contributed only less than 10 percent of the flooding water.

So early water cushioning or pre-emptying the dams wouldn't have counted significantly than holding the water release for a small amount of time. What counted really well is the drastic, extreme heavy downpour, that Kerala never witnessed and IMD couldn't predict.

When we say the limitations in weather predictions, a lot has to be improved in the side of Dam management also in a state that is having these many hydroelectric and irrigation projects. Basically, the procedures followed, water levels to be maintained in Monsoons etc has to be rechecked. 

As Kerala is a state which is depending on Hydroelectric power mostly, the electricity board has a different norm of operating the dams compared to a dam which may be an irrigation project. They followed the usual procedures as per the IMD forecast and past experience, which backfired this time as the situation worsened way beyond weather predictions.

Was it the Rain alone that counted?, not really, the poaching of riverbeds and killing of waterbodies and channels, which happened year after year, also contributed. Floods happen in a place when the draining capacity of the land is lesser than the amount of water incoming.

Reason for Kerala Floods, a good read: https://www.frontline.in/environment/article24925070.ece

Flooded river waste and debris deposits on Bridge,Kerala floods
A sample of the waste taken to Oceans. Dumped by the Flooding river over a bridge in Kerala.
Unfortunately, ignorant local authorities dumped this waste back into the river while cleaning the bridge.
When we say this is all part of drastic climatic changes due to global warming, one of the main culprits is the plastic waste dumped by human activities into the water bodies. These get dumped to oceans by rivers and covers acres of space in the oceans.

A recent study revealed methane is emitted from plastic debris floating in Ocean dump yards. We ourselves are contributing to the climatic changes by these activities. Methane is said to be 20 times more hazardous than carbon dioxide in global warming.

A good read is here: http://www.parley.tv/updates/2018/7/23/a-new-link-between-plastic-and-climate-change.

Note: Photos are not pixelshots property, but sourced from Social media.

Rebuilding Kerala - The state is looking for helping hands.

Rebuilding Kerala became the Government's and people's priority now, but it needs lots of Financial support and the State Government is looking into crowdfunding now because some so-called laws of the country is preventing from getting international help which was much needed for a huge infrastructure and property loss like this. 

The estimated loss was 40000 Crores and a few thousand of crores only got donated to the CM's relief fund as of now(You will get the funds details in this link, https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in/ ). A few crores of rupees may be coming from the Central Government after a lot of paperwork and assessments which is going on. Still, it looks like bringing back Kerala to God's Own Country, we have a long way to go Financially.

Please consider Donating to the CM's relief fund:

ACCOUNT DETAILS 
A/c Number : 67319948232
A/c Name: Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund
Branch: City Branch, Thiruvananthapuram
IFSC : SBIN0070028 | SWIFT CODE : SBININBBT08
Account Type: Savings | PAN: AAAGD0584M
UPI:keralacmdrf@sbi

Lot more Payment Options, you can find in https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in/ 

Note:- Views published here are based on various media and technical reports came after the floods.
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3 comments:

  1. Too pathetic to see the devastation. Hope they will get over this trauma soon.

    ReplyDelete

  2. Really nice blog! posts are relevant and quality! Thank you

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  3. This created jealous in the minds of many people belonging to upper cast, especially Brahmins

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