Vasudevan Nair’s eyes skipped over the two CRT television sets, two feature phones, mixie, table fan and assorted plastic chairs on his front yard. They were all caked in clay and in a heap: as if an archaeologist in a hurry had chanced upon them all.
The conversation, in Panamaram panchayat’s Okakkolli village, had paused when he happened to mention his cat. His eyes searched the neighbour’s yard, they looked up and down the rice field in front of the house that had flooded in the early hours of August 9, evicting him eventually when it started rushing into his house. “He was my only company here. I have no idea where he went,” he mumbled, refusing to state the obvious. He signalled to the back of the house where eight of his goats — 11 perished in the deluge — were tethered.
“I love them, but at the end of the day, they are just money when sold. I bought milk for this cat, I brought him packed parottas. His loss hurts the most,” he said.
Mr. Nair, 72, laughed at the sight of a civilian volunteer who had been cleaning his house trying to attach a clay-caked lid to a pressure cooker. “I wish they had let us know about the dam in time. I could have saved this. I could have at least boiled water now,” he said, digging up an induction cooker.
People living downstream of the Banasura Sagar Dam in Wayanad district are returning home to find all their possessions washed away by a flood that came in three instalments. The second, they said, could have been avoided.
Sakuntala, of Parakkuni Colony in Panamaram, had made sure husband Kuttan went to the stream behind their house periodically on the night of August 8. “There was no announcement about the dam, but it had been raining heavily and I feared they would open the gates. I made sure he went even while I was watching television serials,” she said.
Mr. Kuttan last checked around 1 a.m.: the river had risen, but there was no risk to the house. He slept off after that. “I woke startled at 5.45 a.m., when the water was soaking my sleeping mat,” he said. The family of four rushed out and swam to safety.
Water rose in the localities downstream of the Banasura — the largest earth dam in India — built across a tributary of the Kabini, thrice since July this year.
The first was after July 14, when the dam’s gates were opened till August 5. Residents said they were informed of this by the Kerala State Electricity Board through local newspapers.
Outside Mr. Kuttan’s house, water had risen knee-high during the time. Water rose the highest during the second instalment, when it rose over six feet. The third time, it stayed lower: at his ankle within the house.
Caught unawares
All the residents this newspaper spoke to said they were not aware of the second time the dam was opened, on the morning of August 7. Mananthavady MLA O.R. Kelu had said on August 10 that neither he nor his constituents had been made aware of the August 7 decision.
The KSEB’s public relations officer, in a statement, said the dam’s gates were lifted from 10 to 290 cm over a period of 59 hours: “We informed officials of the district administration of the reasons behind this emergency lifting of the shutters through messages, including email.”
Abdul Rasak of Parakkuni said: “We had returned from the relief camps on August 13 and were trying to clean the sediment inside the house. Then in the evening, panchayat officials came, announcing the dam was to be opened again. We had to evacuate immediately.”
The tribal residents of the 12 houses — and within them, about 30 households — of Nedunilam Colony in Kottathara panchayat have returned home to a fever. Velayudhan had it; now his brother’s daughter too, does. Kamalan’s house, a shed made of tarpaulin as an extension to his parents’, was washed away.
Sumithra said the colony’s only well — it was inundated by the rising waters from the stream that runs on three sides of the colony — was not cleaned properly. Yet, it is their only source of drinking water.
At the Kottathara Dam site, C.K. Jayadevan had no time for a conversation. He kept glancing back at his rice field, where labourers were transplanting paddy against a backdrop of browned-up banana plants lost to the water. “I got lucky. I had sown the paddy three weeks before my neighbours did, so they had better roots that helped them survive the flood,” he said. His half acre of green stood out against the dried-up fields around it. “After the heavy loss I sustained, I needed this luck,” he said.