(Feature Image: Breach in Tonga dam. Source: ETV Bharat)
A breach in earthen Tonga dam has flooded half a dozen villages in Sabalgarh tehsil of Morena district in Madhya Pradesh. The breach occurred in intervening night of August 12-13, 2024. As per reports, the dam first overflowed following rainfall, leading to the breach.
The villagers on Aug 12, 2024, evening noticed leakages through small hole. They informed the irrigation dept & district administration. The officials reached the site and tried to plug the breach, but in vain. A JCB was also called in but could not be taken to the site in absence of proper way.
In the wake of flood threat, the embankment was then cut at two more locations to reduce the water level and divert it to an adjacent Chambal canal. The officials maintained that the breach cannot be repaired until the dam is emptied. The administration sounded flood alerts for about 20 villages.
The leakages gradually increased over 20 feet wide breach by washing away part of earthen dam in late night. By morning, half a dozen villages including Tonga, Devpur, Kutghan Pura, Kori Pura, Pasaun, Rani Pura were flooded. Hundreds of affected villagers left their homes for safer place. The flood also damaged crops worth ₹ 30 lakhover 400 beegha belonging to 12 villages.
The marginal farmers were severely affected by the floods which reached upto Sabalgarh. The villagers felt fixing the hole early could have avoided the damages. They also fear that emptying the dam would result in scarcity of irrigation water in the coming months.
The TV 18, MP reporter claims cracks on the embankment of same dam last year also. This suggests negligence in maintenance and monitoring of the dam. The SDM suspected the breach could be deliberate attempt by farmers owning lands in the submergence area of the dam.
The dam (26° 14′ 22.9164” N 77° 26′ 24.0864” E) is near Tonga village about 20 km away from Sabalgarh tehsil of Morena. According to ETV Bharat, it was built in 1889 by the royal Scindia family and the 135-year-old dam has 193 MCM reservoir capacity. It has about 450-meter-long main concrete wall and two long earthen embankments to impound the water. The dam was filled upto about 80 percent at the time of the breach.
Google Earth imagery shows traces of couple of streams part of Chambal basin which were tapped to build the dam.
However, National Register of Large Dams should have listed such a dam, but there is no dam by the name of Tonga dam (neither in NRLD 2019, nor in in 2023 edition), nor does NRLD list any MP dam commissioned in 1889, the earliest commissioned large dam listed is in 1895. The reservoir capacity listed above seems too high for it not to be listed in NRLD.
Bhim Singh Rawat (bhim.sandrp@gmail.com)
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