Water level continued to rise in the Idukki dam, one of Asia’s largest hydel reservoirs, well after one of the shutters of the Cheruthoni dam was opened at 12.30 p.m. on Thursday, raising the possibility of the ‘trial run’ continuing through the night and more shutters being opened to ease the pressure of water on the Idukki arch dam.
The shutter of the Cheruthoni dam was opened after a gap of 26 years after much deliberation at different levels. The final clearance for raising the shutter came from a high-level review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the State capital on Thursday morning when the water level in the dam crossed the 2,399-ft mark. This is for the first time in the history of the dam that a shutter has been opened during the southwest monsoon period. The dam was earlier opened in 1981 and 1992, both towards the end of the northeast monsoon.
The original plan was to raise the shutter by 50 cm for four hours. However, an emergency meeting of officials held at the Collectorate on Thursday evening to review the situation found that there was no let-up in the water level and decided to continue the water release at the same level for the whole night.
Crosses 2,400 ft
The water level in the dam breached the 2,400-ft mark at 8 p.m. One shutter was slowly lifted to 50 cm in 15 minutes. Though it was earlier decided to conduct the trial run when the water level reaches 2,398 ft, it was delayed following the release of water into the Periyar from the Idamalayar dam at 5 a.m. The release of water from Idukki dam became inevitable as the water level continued to rise following heavy inflow into the reservoir. The district administration issued an alert to people at 11 a.m. that the dam would be opened by noon.
The Cheruthoni dam has five shutters of which the central one was opened for trial run. The trial run resulted in about 50 million cubic metre of water per second being released to the Cheruthoni river which joins the Periyar downstream near to the Cheruthoni town.
To be increased
The District Collector informed that from 7 a.m. on Friday, 100 cumecs will be released.
The water from the Idukki dam moves to the Lower Periyar dam. From there it flows down to Bhoothathankettu, Idamalayar, Kalady and Aluva to join the Arabian sea.