CHENNAI: Stoutly denying the charges of opposition parties that the state released a huge volume of water from Sathanur dam without issuing any warnings, Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan on Tuesday said that had the government failed to release 1.80 lakh cusecs of water from the dam at an appropriate time, it would have resulted in a catastrophe.
“The state has protected the people by its timely action. Experts in water management and dam safety can understand this fact. Since the government assessed the situation in advance and took the precautionary step of releasing water, a huge loss of lives has been prevented. Had 1.8 lakh cusecs of water not been released, it would have caused huge danger to the dam and its entire capacity of 7 TMC water would have flown out,” the minister said in a six-page statement.
He said that examining the unpredictable course of Cyclone Fengal would make it clear why a huge quantity of water was released from Sathanur dam. Giving details of how the cyclone formed and brought sudden spells of heavy rains in Tiruvannamalai, Kallakurichi, Villupuram and Cuddalore that increased the inflow into Sathanur dam exponentially, he pointed out that five flood warnings were issued from time to time about the release of water from Sathanur and at midnight, the inflow became unpredictable.
AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami had earlier alleged that the government should have issued flood warnings when the inflow to the dam increased. “At 2.30 am on December 2, as much as 1.68 lakh cusecs of water was released from the dam without any announcement. Many villages in Kallakurichi, Villupuram and Cuddalore were marooned and people lost their livelihood resources,” he said.
PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss said the information about the release of 1.80 lakh cusecs of water from Sathanur dam at 2.45 am was given to the media at 4.15 am. “So, the warning did not reach the people who were in deep sleep at that time. In 2015, Chennai residents faced great hardships because the then government failed to release the water as and when the Chembarambakkam Lake inflow increased. The DMK government has committed the same mistake,” Anbumani added.
Talking to reporters at Manjakuppam, BJP state president K Annamalai said that the five flood warnings were shared among the government departments and not to the people. “So, the water resources minister’s statement cannot be accepted and it is contrary to the ground reality. Can we expect people to watch TV at 3 am?” he asked.