This annual overview highlights the dam induced flood disasters, dam failure incidents in India during 2022. This year, the massive floods in Godavari have exposed the flood vulnerability of giant projects like Polavaram and Kaleshwaram. Also there have been multiple dam failures and dam induced floods in Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. In absence of coordination and data sharing Hirakud induced floods in Mahanadi basin have affected several villages in Odisha and Chhattisgarh. There have been several instances of unscientific operations of dams and the operators continue to hide behind TINA (There Is No Alternative) excuse. The functioning of CWC as key flood forecasting and management agency has not shown any significant improvement. However, now it has accepted that faulty dam operations can lead to flood in downstream areas. Please see links to our 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 annual compilations on the subject.
Continue reading “Dam Floods, Failures and Disasters in 2022”Tag: Monsoon 2022
India’s Rivers Crossing Highest Flood Level in Oct 2022
(Feature Image: River Rapti flowing in severe flood situation at Balrampur level forecast site in Balrampur district, Uttar Pradesh on Oct. 07, 2022. Image Source: CWC)
The retreating South West monsoon 2022 witnessed unusual rainfall spells in the first ten days of October eventually resulting in breach of Highest Flood Levels (HFL) at least at 26 stations in the country. In 2021, in entire October, there were just nine instances across India when HFL was breached, compared to 26 already this year. Rainfall across India as on Oct 26 morning as per IMD, is 109.2 mm, already 60% above normal rainfall of 68.3 mm.
26 HFL crossing sites in Oct 2022 comprised of 09 Level Forecast (LF) and 17 Level Monitoring (LM) crossing HFLs. 21 are in Ganga basin, 1 in Narmada basin, 3 in Cauvery basin and 1 is part of East Flowing Rivers (EFR) between Pennar to Kanyakumari basin. Of total sites breaching the HFLs in Ganga basin 13 are in Uttar Pradesh, 3 each in Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh and 2 in Bihar.
Continue reading “India’s Rivers Crossing Highest Flood Level in Oct 2022“
SANDRP 