-The Telegraph New Delhi: Kerala did not have inundation maps or emergency action plans when waterworks engineers, responding to rising water levels, released the shutters of dams last week, but other states may be similarly vulnerable, a 2017 government audit report suggests. In the absence of detailed inundation maps or action plans, district authorities can warn local communities about an impending rise in water levels but without a clear idea of how...

-PTI ‘The decline of groundwater inflow is also impacting the health of the river’ Kolkata: Ganga, the 2,600-km-long trans-boundary river of Asia, has witnessed “unprecedented low levels of water in several lower reaches” in the last few summer seasons, a study undertaken by a professor of IIT-Kharagpur has said. The study, published recently in Scientific Reports magazine by Nature Publishing Group, used a combination of satellite images of groundwater levels of Ganga, numerical...

-TheCitizen.in Dam failure a real fear The current floods in Kerala are unprecedented and clearly a national disaster. In the midst of this disaster, there is fear for the structural safety of the Mullaperiyar dam on the Periyar river. Madras Engineers Colonel John Pennycuick commenced construction of this 173-ft high dam in 1887, and it was commissioned in 1895. This gravity dam was considered an engineering marvel of those times. With the dam’s...

-Scroll.in A creek from the Periyar river was diverted when the airport – shut till August 26 – was built. As heavy rain continues to lash Kerala, the government announced on Thursday that the flooded Cochin International Airport would remain closed until August 26. The international airports in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode districts will accommodate the traffic from Kochi, which is Kerala’s largest airport. The state is in the grip of what has...

-News18.com The state’s residents, politicians and bureaucrats have come together to provide relief and help with rebuilding, but what is striking is the delayed response in the release of funds for rescue and relief operations in the state from the central government. As Kerala continues to battle floods, the Pinarayi Vijayan government has found itself caught between nature’s fury and the lack of resources to wade through the flooded waters in ‘God’s...