 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. After weeks of intense rainfall, which led to flooding and huge human suffering, rain waters are finally receding in Kerala and people are beginning to leave relief camps. Now the next stage is rehabilitation, as well as an analysis of what actually took place. To talk more about this, we have with us James Wilson. Mr. Wilson is a special officer with the Kerala government in the Interstate Water Advisory Committee, as well as an expert on dam safety, as well as water management issues. Hello Mr. Wilson, welcome to NewsClick. Mr. Wilson, first of all, let us take a look at the criticism or the claim that actually Kerala was not really prepared for these floods. Was it possible to anticipate a disaster of this magnitude? And if so, what preparations we take? These types of humans are called in our engineering parlance at 1000 year events. But that is a misleading term because people will think that this type of a flood will happen only one time in a thousand years. But the better way of expressing this in annual accidents probability, you always, when you are designing a city, you are designing that particular city normally for one in hundred years flood. One in hundred years flood doesn't mean that it is only going to happen one time in a hundred years. So the actually the annual accidents probability of that one is one percent of chance of having that particular flood in an year. So this type of flood, the chances in a hundred years span is 9.5 percent, 2 percent. So we had something similar to this one in 1924. Right. All data is indicating that Kerala had two major floods, one in 1924, another one was in 1961. So how much water at that time? Because Periyar was the one of the biggest river in the Kerala and it is covering a large number of the area. So we actually looking into the data, you can see that 1961 flood was almost 60 percentage of that what we had in 1924. So to prepare this one means that you need that much of resources for that particular thing. Second thing is that this is a very extreme event, extreme event is happening even your preparations are certain limitation into that. So there is a line, there is a line. So many people are doesn't understand that how Kerala topography, these type of events are however you are prepared you have a problem with these type of particular things. We have a topography, we are one of the, the width of the state is very narrow. You are high 100 to 150 kilometer most of this. Slop is so huge, the water will get most of the rivers, some rivers it will be less than 20 hours, from the origin it will reach the feet. So then we are having this Periyar system most, when we are talking about the floods in Pamba basically there was a flood happening many places, you look into that and I can categorize that this particular flood has actually given so much insight into you because you are having three type of systems affected by flood. Your Periyar is a moderately controlled river because around the 25 percentage of annual rain flow you can actually trap in your reservoir. If you look into the Pamba it is around 10.5 percent. So another systems of the places where we had huge issues called Calicut Malambu where the Chalaya river is flowing it has no dams. There are another system that is actually created havoc in Changanura and other places this actually the backwater from the Vembran wetland was actually creating. There are three rivers doesn't have any single dam, Achankovind, Manimelaaya and Meenachila doesn't have anything. Pamba is having only a small reservoir somewhere with I will to get a perspective I can tell you that Idiki capacity is 1460. The capacity of Idamalaya is 1020 the Pamba is around 445 m here. Altogether Kerala's capacity is around 5,160. When you are looking into that one you compare with Nagarjuna Sagar that single reservoir can hold around 5600 m here. These all our these dams 53 dams plus we allowed Tamil Nadu to create four dams in our territory that they are they are also storing around 670 mcm. Altogether this when you are looking into the average annual flow these reservoirs can hold around 7 percent of the annual flow happening in our system. In a flood year this normally this goes between 52 in certain levels it even goes up to 2.5 times of the average annual flow. So your capacity of this India's 7 percent was curtailed between 3 to 4 percent of the annual flow is actually trapped in your reservoir system. So as a flood control thing you need sometimes to the reservoir but the problem is that we are having three outlets also in the way of one is Kaya Angulankayal, another one is at the Tautopalli Spilvi and the Parivurpoi you are having at the Kochin area. So when you are actually going in your reservoir with a huge area of flood absorption capacity what will happen you are actually you have to strike a balance between the money investment that is leave that apart. When you are creating huge space for flood absorption in that particular reservoir you have to raise the reservoir level to a certain height some 20 percent capacity you want to keep that one you have to remove that much forest from there. Exactly. So that there you are actually striking a balance if somebody is accusing that Idikis does not have a flood storage balance we created a flood storage space in Idikis around 10 percent of the that was when government took a decision to discharge Idikis full reservoir level is 2403 feet and we started discharging Idikis at around 2399 it is very closer to that 89 some 0.1 feet before. So Idikis can go maximum up to 240.85 but the thing is that if you are looking into that one how much space we created 10 percent beyond that one if we are actually no one predicted this type of a rainfall you look into the advisory published by the Indian meteorological department on the 9th of August for two weeks that does not speak about any type of a heavy rainfall in Kerala. So that is the short term rainfall there is another advisory by the IMD for the August and September they were talking that there will be 96 percent to 102 percent that is their normal rainfall you are going to that is for two months that can be used for your short term or medium term management you look into the entire IMD bulletin they published in the 30th November sorry 30th May that is a long term plan for the entire year they never predicted it is not going to be a flood year they only told that it is a normal year it can your rainfall average rainfall it can be up to 96 percent or 100 percent. For that long term strategy if you are if somebody is addressing us to MD your reservoir and keep in a normal year I because you need this water the problem is my acquisition is we are greedy we are actually making power and we are greedy to make power money we actually not ready to release this particular thing there is one problem the people does not understand that most of the Kerala's electricity boats reservoir systems are actually catering the releases are actually used for small vias and barrages downstream of that one on the tailwaters are actually further used for irrigation project and this water is actually used for drinking water purpose so many wells are in the water authority are having even you are having this saline water intrusion is to a certain extent this is helping that one look into ridicule ridicule is having downstream of other moat vada basin you are having a malangara from that one this entire moat vada valley irrigation project is flooded under the khaki you are having your pamba valley you go to the chalakudi you are having tumbur mudi this chalakudi irrigation project is depending on this shalaya and puringal kutu reservoir just like that one that is an integrator reservoir operation so we will suffer use several times in kerala you are hearing that in go to shabarimala you do not have any water to actually taken bath in the this December period so at that time this case here reservoir reservoir is on the upstream I actually opened without generative power we are actually discharging there so this is a situation where and one another thing what we are noticing over the years that when kerala's average annual rainfall remains more or less constant from 1900 to this period for the last 100 years we are experiencing a particular phenomenon that the number of rainy days are actually getting shorter so you are having not a high rainfall but moderate small small spells previously it was evenly distributed that is actually getting skewed so if we are not storing this particular water and if this water is not there you are going to have a problem with forget about the power first your drinking water will be the bigger problem you are having now the number of rainy days are shortened approximately to 80 days the rest of the times the lean flow there is these rivers are not like genna or brahmaputra which receives the water during when the summer when the glaciers are melting this is these rivers are not perennial rivers you are getting only non perennial river you are having a problem there so these storages are very much essential so the decision makers has to take a call where you have to cut where you have to release the biggest allegation we are facing is that between two thousand nine hundred eighty you would have been decided you would have been actually started this control release or a trial run at two thousand three two three nine eight feet you could have been saved so much these people doesn't understand the data between two thousand nine eight and two thousand nine nine hardly diki reservoir can store point five tmc how much spill it has diki storage capacity is fifty one point five effective storage capacity grow storage capacity is seventy point five the spill water is more than thirty tmc so if i created point five tmc whether it will make any qualitative difference in the interior management system first question second question when the chief minister took a decision on the twenty ninth i attended that meeting we told that why we may decided to have a trial run because at that time the water was actually we had a first peak a heavy rainfall in the julie middle that actually created havoc in the kuttanadu we were slowly recovering from that one so when we are seeing that one at that time the diki was receiving an inflow of around twenty five thousand q6 when the cm was calling the meeting it was something around sixteen thousand after that when we are we were waiting for to reach something around two thousand three nine eight at that time it was something hovering between two thousand nine five and six i don't remember exactly but it is more or less there but when we decided to release do a trial run why we decided to do a trial run because this reservoir last opened in 1992 so much encouragement happened in the last twenty six years if we are opening this particular reservoir how the system is resilient so how many encouragement is there whether it will create problems for the people in the immediate downstream we decided to open that one but we seen from that day till eighth of august every day the rainfall was getting reduced reduced the water flow into sixteen thousand it becomes around three thousand seven hundred plus the inflow was reduced so at that time what we were doing we were actually generating power at mule metem powers and discharging this water so you if you look into the diki data that is in the public domain SLDC state load dispatch center published that one you can see that almost one week the water level in the diki is almost equal it was not fluctuating between one centimeter or two centimeters something like that suddenly rain happened on the ninth onwards but it was also slowly raising it's it's what happened uh what happened is actually reality is fifteen sixteen seventeen is entirely changed the scenario that is an uncontrollable flood you are it is a one in thousand year event i can say that some somebody saying it is some some we today i had a discussion with the some of the engineers and some agree with one in thousand year some agree say that okay we can tell to one in five hundred but that is small difference is there total rainfall event will be that will be something like fifty millimeter or something when you are going to the upper bound you are going to have a small difference is there so i am calling it as a one in thousand year flood which we had experienced something in nineteen twenty four there was lot of discussion is happening that imd is putting that this is one sixty four percentage of excess than whatever it is that doesn't make any sense sense is that when i am putting some weight on your head twenty five kg twenty five kg four some twenty days you will be able to you have no problem suddenly i put five hundred kg on your twenty five into twenty five hundred kg on your head your neck will break so just like that in the system system is having its own resilience you are if we are getting this type of rainfall for spanning for some ten days it would not be created any type of a flood it's a three days yeah it is a three days it is extremely can you believe that i am having the data i am having the data actually i can tell you that how much it is that is very interesting figure you will then know that how how severe this particular rain was because in three days in idki we got 576 millimeters of rainfall that is idki is used to get around the 2800 which is one sixth of the annual rainfall in four days we got 811 it is almost more than 30 35 percentage of the annual rainfall we are getting in idki happened within three four days in three days we had around the dot pamba you look into the khaki reservoir we had 915 millimeter rainfall in four days and it is around 690 millimeter in three days so the this is the situation kutiyadi that is in khalikat area khalikat area this kutiyadi reservoir where this khakai is very close that had recorded 954 millimeter you know that in ilambur when it was flooded there was 410 millimeter rainfall in a single day and idamalaya when you are reaching to the plains it was little bit reduced 644 in the peri air basically so another peculiarity of this particular rain was this is almost evenly spread all over kerala today i was sitting with the center water commission engineers and we are looking into that when we identified as there is a thoms i was peru medu there the three day was around 800 nobody can know system whatever system you put you have to open that system and they are really appreciating the effort that how we are managing the system so if you look at for instance the imd or the central water commission whether any steps they could have taken to provide better information no the problem is that imd also having certain limitations in these type of things there are different type of natural calamity if you are having an earthquake you are nobody is going to we never developed a technology to predict that one only only option with us is that to create structures resilient to actually withstand this particular type of a earthquake phenomena only the a natural calamity which will give you a lot of time for preparation and evacuation is the cyclones that you know from 7 to 10 days in advance at that time you can predict it with the 75 percent accuracy when it is crossing to your cost very close to 3 to 4 days before you will you are able to predict between 95 to 97 percent accuracy so you know the intensity of that one you know how which path it is going there so you can evacuate people and you can get preparation these type of extreme rainfall events hardly take for 3 to 4 3 to 5 hours to actually the the storm will actually get intensified then there is then you know that but this whether this time is sufficient for to create any type of a response I do not think that it is very difficult for any system in this type of a particular topography and this type of huge population density state is very difficult and if you look for instance at the question of say the release of dams also maybe could you take us through a small step by step a very brief step by step procedure of how things worked out there yeah we are basically we are what we have done there in 14 the bees seen that the rainfall is actually slowly intensifying we are created a system we are created a group to take decision we are actually we ensured a flow of information from all our dams because if you are looking into the Periyar Periyar is having the biggest development of dams I told you Periyar is having around 25 percent of that that river is in annual flow we are dam Pambha is not that much we do not have that much control over Pambha river but in Periyar we are having 14 dams by Kerala 2 dams by Tamil Nadu there are 2 vias by Kerala and one barrage by Kerala Kerala there is one via by Tamil Nadu that is a very this one and it is having different type of tributary in the main Periyar river you are having upstream one Mulla Periyar reservoir controlled by Tamil Nadu an uncertainty element nobody knows how much water they are going to release then they are released that is an uncertainty added into a very complex system of the Periyar then you are having a decree dam downstream which is having a capacity of around 1460 one of the biggest capacity the reservoir in Kerala below that one some people are saying that why did not you build a fill that lower Periyar reservoir there does not know that what is the capacity of lower Periyar and how it is managing how it is it is only having 4.5 every monsoon you see that from the June onwards it will be whenever there is a rain it will overflow this NAMI is only used for peak power generation because without creating any storage capacity is only a runoff of a scheme nobody in their right sensors will tell that then you are having a Fudhatan Gettu battery somebody was coming in the TV and there why you are actually filling not filling idemalaya reservoir idemalaya to fill the idemalaya reservoir is not in the course of the main river it is joining the Fudhatan Gettu from other side of a tributary that is upstream of that one if I want to fill idiki reservoir water to idemalaya I have to pump that water 200 to 300 feet from Fudhatan Gettu barrage kilometer and kilometer they do not understand the system second thing is you are having another group if you visited moon or you can see that there are we are having some we are having eight reservoirs one system is a beer so forget about that it is seven reservoir systems so that is kundala, martupati, senkulam, anirangal, punmudi, kalarguti and there is an r i head works this system is but this system is a widespread area this is one area where you had in 1924 flood this mudra pudai it is called that area entire road leading to kochin to moon or was washed away during the 1924 flood but there we are having very limited storage capacity when you are having 1460 in idiki it is having only 162 then you are having a small tributary called perinyan kutti which is actually joining between idiki and mudra pudai it is the water is coming to lower barrier but it is having only two diversions gives small wheels that does not have any storage facility at all then you are having the arm of idemalaya idemalaya is having two dams upstream one is one beer and one dam there is an upper nirar beer by tamizhwadi government and there is another one called lower nirar below that one you are idemalaya idemalaya is having a control you are having around 1000 mc of water there so this is a very integrated system so how we manage you see we ensured a flow of information we put all district collectors in the group all decision makers top decision makers from the revenue addition chief secretary he is the member secretary of the state disaster management and all these people were together and district collectors electricity board chairman all chief engineers who are actually dealing with the power of power generation all chief engineers in charge of the dams and all engineers who are actually manning on the site on this dam so we are getting flow of information and we were looking every hour we are looking that how this flow is changing so if we are feeling that when especially we are managing idemalaya idemalaya in a synchronized mode because if we are discharging that if we are looking into that particular system in isolation and I am not respecting the basin as a whole unit because the entire system of water is actually getting into the alloy coaching belt so I am seeing that whether my if I am releasing more sometimes I am releasing more idemalaya I will allow to go little bit up that time I want to reduce some water and I am creating some space in idiki so just like that we actually manage that one so so that was a very complex management every hour engineers were stressed to their minimum nobody was sleeping at all we people were hardly slept for three days there was nothing sleep 14 onwards till 17th I seen that my I was really surprised he is a administrator he is also taking the pain that he was actually in the group even two o'clock he sometimes I get sleepy second or third day I got sleepy then he is asking me that what is your suggestion about idiki because we are getting so many people are saying so many things so they are getting suggestion from people and they are taking quick decision without considering because our chief minister when he made a review on 29th he given us that okay this is situation now it is your choice I will you do what situation demands right don't come back to me for every single decision so he given the freedom to professionally manage the two he knows that the political decision will be taken at the that level after that it is our job to manage this one we think that we are we are not going to face this in our lifetime we actually everybody rose to that occasion and they manage at their they were stressed to their limited some people actually had in Pamba sorry Kaki and Sholaya areas they had you know people were actually standard their engineers were standard therefore without food for two to three days but they were not they are still managing they are getting we are actually messaging them through some other means they are getting luckily in Kerala most of the if you go to any remote place also you will get a cell connectivity there only for a couple of hours ridicule or standard cell phone problem because of the flooding and other thing otherwise we were getting flow of information was there assured but one big lesson I am letting that now we are having satellite phones and other things so we will but put a give to these type of people who are there right at the stations thank you so much thank you that's all we have time for new script thank you