THE MACHHU DAM DISASTER OF 1979 IN GUJARAT

The Machhu dam disaster or The Morvi dam failure was a damrelated flood disaster which occurred on August 11, 1979 in India. The Machchu2dam, situated on the Machhu river burst, sending a wall of water through the town of Morvi in the Rajkot district of Gujarat. The estimates of the number of people killed vary greatly ranging from 1800 to 15000 people. The failure was caused by excessive rain and massive flooding leading to the disintegration of the earthen walls of the four kilometer long Machchu II dam. The spillway capacity provided for 5663 m/s. The actual observed flow following the intense rainfall reached 16307 m/s, thrice what the dam was designed for, resulting in its collapse. Within 20 minutes the floods of 12 to 30 ft (3.7 to 9.1 m) height inundated the low-lying areas of Morvi industrial town located 5 km below the dam. During reconstruction of the dam the capacity of the spillway was increased by 4 times and fixed at about 21,000 m/s. The Morvi dam failure has been listed as the worst dam burst in the Guinness Book of Records. The book No One Had A Tongue To Speak by Tom Wooten and Utpal Sandesara debunks the official claims that the dam failure was an Act of God and points to structural and communication failures that led to and acerbated the disaster. There was great economic loss. The flood damaged the farmland, leading to a decrease in productivity of crops. Tragic tale of the Commission of InquiryAfter the disaster, revelations were made about the government failures before and after the Machhu dam disaster. The independent judicial Commission of Inquiry set up by the State Government, which for a year and half investigated into the technical causes of the dams failure and on the adequacy of the efforts of the dam authorities to warn people downstream of the imminent danger. The investigation zeroed in on flawed design practices in the Irrigation Department. Mr. Madhavsinh Solanki, the Chief Minister at the time of submission of inquiry report allegedly wound up the Commission midway. Machhu dam-II was rebuilt in the end of the 1980s. A public interest group sued the government on behalf of the people and won a judgment in the Gujarat High Court, but the Supreme Court overturned the ruling, ensuring that the full lessons of the Machhu dam disaster would not come to public light. Machhu dam-I was made decades earlier, but the need for another dam, near Morbi, persisted. In 1955, the local government submitted its plan to the Central Water and Power Commission (CWPC), which oversaw and approved all

water infrastructure projects. The CWPCs response contained several major criticisms. For years, the CWPC remained critical of many aspects of the project. State engineers, goaded by local politicians, almost bypassed the stringent norms set by the commission. However, the locals didnt even know of the construction of a temple of modern India. For most, news of the dam came as a shock. Government surveyors, dressed in fancy western clothes and laden with bulky equipment, appeared in the fields surrounding the village When asked, the surveyors informed the people that a dam had been planned, and that the government would relocate their villages within a few years. State arrogance relied on the ultimate collectivist justification sacrifice of the citizen for the common good. So, project engineer Vasoya had stressed to the villagers that their sacrifice would do a great deal of good for many people in the area. Later, he argued vociferously with his superiors for more generous compensation on their behalf. But the money was not forthcoming. As an affected person said: The government decides, and the government builds. What would we have to say in these matters? It was not that the powers that be were heartless. When the dam burst on August 11, 1979, killing thousands (estimates vary from a few thousands to 25,000) and uprooting many more, politicians and bureaucrats worked ceaselessly to bring Morbi back on track. The chief minister (of the Janata Party), who had stationed himself at the ravaged town, pressed forward with an indomitable determination to see Morbi rise up from the rubble of the Morbi dam disaster. But when it came to apportioning culpability, the state government and the engineering community stonewalled the inquiry commission that was set up under a state high court judge. The state government, under Patels successor, Madhavsinh Solanki (of the Congress), ensured that the panel did not proceed and wound it up on the ground that it was not functioning properly. Sadly, the Supreme Court countenanced the Solanki regimes decision. If justice is truth in action, then the people of Morbi got neither. The culprits were not even named, let alone brought to justice; and the victims didnt even come to know the truth. But they have some solace now: their story is no longer untold.

Experiences of those who lived the disasterPeople scrambled for rooftops, hilltops, and other safe grounds in order to save themselves. At the Vajepar Ram Mandir, over a hundred people breathed their last when the deluge submerged the temple. Women were compelled to drop their babies into the furious surge in order to save themselves and people lost their loved ones in a flash. A woman is said to be paralyzed from the waist down, who floated above the waves in a wash basin. Mr. Gangaram Tapu, an able-bodied young prisoner at the local jail, swam through the torrent and pulled dozens of people to safety; he earned a pardon, only to return to jail twenty-five years later. Lots of hands of help came from around the world to survive the Morbi after this disaster. It took near about 3 years for Morbi to wake up form this disaster and again started to work