Pleas for divine intervention sound ludicrous when mouthed by technical experts appearing on television debates. But to the horror of viewers, experts on the Mullaperiyar dam are often urging them to pray as there is no other recourse. In cyberspace and in the real world, Keralites are voicing worries that the 116-year-old dam, in Idukki district, may collapse any day. Some call it a ticking “water bomb”. If the dam bursts, as many fear, other dams downstream—the Idukki arch dam, the dams at Kulamavu and Cheruthoni, the lower Periyar dam and the Boothankettu barrage, already overflowing—will be unable to contain the onrush. The doomsday predictions are that a disaster of this sort could kill some 30 lakh people in five districts of Kerala and even alter the geography of the state. About 50 kilometres downstream, in Karinkulam Chappathu, in the path of foretold destruction, a relay fast organised by the Mullaperiyar Agitation Council has been on for more than 1,800 days—December 25, 2006, onwards. “The dam is unsafe and we want the water level reduced to 120 feet,” says C.P. Roy, chairman of the council. As if to point out that it’s not a Kerala versus Tamil Nadu thing, he adds that among the 1,000-odd protesters, some 600 are Tamilians. Many of those protesting feel that Kerala politicians have failed them. Locals’ fears have only been compounded by the 26 tremors that have rocked the region since July. On November 18 and 26, there were two earthquakes of magnitude 3.4 on the Richter scale, with multiple aftershocks. Experts from IIT Roorkee, appointed by the Kerala government, have said in a site-specific study that the dam cannot withstand an earthquake of magnitude 6 or more. Some 16 km from Mullaperiyar is the Thekkady-Kodaivannalur seismic fault, and the experts’ report says seismic activity of high magnitude cannot be ruled out. Though temblors cannot be predicted, locals, for some reason, fear that the recent tremors are precursors to a big one that will bring doom. Too old? The Mullaperiyar dam Another factor causing worry is the heavy rainfall the region received in the last few days. Another study by IIT Delhi says the Mullaperiyar dam is hydrologically unsafe. If there is a cloudburst and heavy rainfall of 654 mm in two days, water levels will reach 160 feet, exceeding the Full Reservoir Level by 5 feet. The dam will collapse in such a scenario. Mullaperiyar is a composite gravity dam, hybrid in nature, and built in 1895. It is 1,200 feet long and 155 feet high and has a storage capacity of 15.66 thousand-million cubic feet (TMC). The dam is made of rubble masonry, lime, surkhi (burnt tile powder) and mortar. A lease deed was executed in 1886 between the Maharaja of Travancore and the Madras Presidency to direct the waters of the Periyar to the Vaigai basin in Tamil Nadu. Though this lease became void after independence, it was renewed by successive governments. Kerala has leased 8,692 acres to Tamil Nadu and receives Rs 10 lakh yearly for the lease and as royalty for hydroelectric power. Tamil Nadu has been indifferent to Kerala’s fears. The states are now embroiled in a legal battle, with Kerala challenging the certification by the Central Water Commission (CWC in 1986 and 2001 that the dam is safe. In February 2006, the Supreme Court passed a judgment based on the CWC’s report that the water level in the dam could be raised to 142 feet. But the Kerala assembly, in a special session, passed a law that it should not exceed 136 feet. Tamil Nadu responded with a suit in the Supreme Court under Article 131 of the Constitution. It’s now pending in the court. Some experts say the CWC, while certifying the dam safe, used simplified pseudostatic analysis instead of the more complex finite element method and dynamic analysis. One of the CWC’s own consultants, Dr A.K. Gosain of IIT Delhi, has testified before the Supreme Court that the dam was hydrologically unsafe. So in 2010, the court appointed a committee comprising three retired Supreme Court judges and two technical members—strangely, they are from the CWC—to reassess the dam. Kerala, which wants a new dam in place, is promising Tamil Nadu the same amount of water it now gets. But Tamil Nadu sticks to its guns, saying the old dam is safe.