Land area in Victoria Shear Zone unstable

Shirley Wijesinghe

MATALE: The land area along the Victoria Shear Zone is said to be unstable after appearance of huge cracks in the houses and lowering of earth in some places of the region. Victoria Dam is also in this limit and fortunately no cracks or seeping of water from the reservoir has been confirmed.

The Mahaweli and River Basin Ministry said that investigations are being carried out, to ascertain how this condition will affect the Victoria Dam and relevant authorities have been called to provide the necessary measures, in order to avoid this risk.

According to the recent observations, a fluctuation in well water levels in villages, such as Konangamuwa and Dostarawatte was a surprise to the villagers and was able to create a great impact on earth scientists.

It has been pointed out that the Ministry needed to carry out detailed studies to trace if there is any connection with these geological variations and a possibility of leakage in the Dam.

The National Building Research Organization (NBRO) said that a leakage of the Dam could be detected by a geochemical sampling process and this will be planned after the establishment of its project office attached to the Divisional Secretariat, which has been already proposed by the ministry.