India May Be Sitting On A Bigger Disaster Than Uttarakhand Due To Its Ageing Dams

Does anyone remember Dam 999, the 2011 movie? if you don't you are not alone, because the multi-lingual film failed miserably in the box office, despite all the politics and controversies around it at that time.

Directed by UAE-based Indian businessman Sohan Roy, Dam 999 is a science fiction film based on award-winning short documentary DAMs - The Lethal Water Bombs, and the Banqiao dam disaster of 1975 that claimed the lives of 250,000 people in China.

Dam 999

Film controversy

The film ran into controversy in Tamil Nadu at a time when the state was engaged in a bitter dispute with neighbouring Kerala over the Mullaperiyar Dam.

The Mullaperiyar Dam is an earthen gravity dam built by a British engineer called John Pennycuick between 1887-1895 in present-day Kerala.

But the dam, which was projected to have a life expectancy of around 40 years was leased to the then Madras Presidency by the King of Travancore for 999 years (that is where the name Dam 999 came from). This contract continued even after independence and the dam, located inside Kerala is operated by Tamil Nadu.

BCCL

The dam which is well past its life expectancy ran into controversy in the early 2000s after a series of earthquakes in Kerala's Idukki District, where the dam is located.

This resulted in the dam, which was constructed using limestone and "surkhi" weakening considerably and water started leaking from it.

There is a fear that if the structure weakens further, it will lead to the collapse of the dam, and lakhs of lives spread across five districts of Kerala will be lost.

Won't withstand a earthquake larger than 6.5 on Richter scale

According to a 2009 study by seismic engineers at the Indian Institute of Technology, it might not withstand a strong earthquake larger than 6.5 on the Richter scale.

BCCL

Not an isolated case

This however is not an isolated case in India, and the age of dams and the threat they pose is once again in the limelight following the Uttarakhand glacier burst which damaged the dam known as the Rishiganga Hydroelectric Project.

Just recently, a United Nations (UN) report "Ageing water infrastructure: An emerging global risk", had said that over 1,000 large dams in India will be roughly 50 years old in 2025 and such ageing embankments across the world pose a growing threat.

AP

The report, compiled by Canada-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health, says the world is unlikely to witness another large dam-building revolution as in the mid-20th century, but dams constructed then will inevitably be showing their age.

Most of the 58,700 large dams worldwide were constructed between 1930 and 1970 with a design life of 50 to 100 years, adding that at 50 years, a large concrete dam "would most probably begin to express signs of ageing".

BCCL

Ageing signs include increasing cases of dam failures, progressively increasing costs of dam repair and maintenance, increasing reservoir sedimentation, and loss of a dam's functionality and effectiveness, "strongly interconnected" manifestations, the paper says.