Aluva town and nearby local bodies situated along the banks of the Periyar heaved a sigh of relief, with no alarming rise in water level as feared owing to the discharge of huge volumes of water from the Cheruthoni dam in Idukki.
That it did not rain on Saturday also helped in improving the situation. By evening, only 67 relief camps were functioning in the district. Earlier, 75 camps were opened to accommodate 11,512 people from 3,613 families.
The district administration and Revenue officials had been in a heightened state of alert ever since all the five shutters of the Cheruthoni dam were opened on Friday afternoon, leading to manifold increase in water discharge.
It was supposed to precipitate matters along the banks of Periyar in Aluva and adjacent areas, which were already in a state of flux after several low-lying areas got inundated.
A further rise in water level was supposed to hit the areas hard as and when water reached downstream on Friday night. Teams of Navy, Coast Guard, Army, National Disaster Response Force, Fire and Rescue Services Department, and the police were deployed in all vulnerable spots.
“The rise in water level has been quite negligible, and there is no reason to be anxious. In fact, considering the width of the Periyar in Aluva, it could contain even another one metre rise in water level,” Food Safety Commissioner M.G. Rajamanickam told The Hindu . Mr. Rajamanickam along with Kochi Metro Rail Limited managing director A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish has been put in charge of coordinating and monitoring relief and rehabilitation operations in Ernakulam district. The officials oversaw the Vavu Bali rituals along the Aluva Manappuram on Saturday morning. Later in the day, water in the Periyar receded further.Mr. Rajamanickam reached the district from the capital in the early hours of Saturday. He visited the control room at Aluva and discussed the flood situation with District Collector K. Mohammed Y. Safirulla. However, water is yet to recede from places already inundated before the release of additional volumes of water from the Cheruthoni dam. Places like Idayapuram in Keezhmadu panchayat and areas near the metro yard in Choornikkara panchayat remained waterlogged.
Unhygienic conditions in these places make them vulnerable to spread of diseases owing to the presence of leeches.
In Aluva municipality, areas including Chempakassery, Thottakkattukara, and Desam Kadavu Road also remained under water, delaying the return of people who had moved to relief camps or relatives’ places. In places where water has actually receded, cakes of mud have swept into buildings, causing hardship to residents, while toilets remained unusable in a few places.
