Uma Oya tunnel being dugout 100 M below Koslanda 

  
BY NIRANJALA ARIYAWANSHA-Ceylon today  November 9, 2014 


A tunnel being dug 100 metres below the Koslanda hills, where the recent landslide tragedy took place, may be the cause of the tragedy, environmentalists inferred.
This tunnel will divert Mahaweli waters from Kirindi Oya to the Moneragala, Badulla and Hambantota Districts under the Rs 80 billion multipurpose Uma Oya Hydro Electric Power and Irrigation Project.
 
Environmentalists, Prasad Ambalanyaya and Ravindra Kairyawasam from the ‘Green for Change’ and ‘Nature Unit’ respectively said that development projects such as these are causes for ecological disasters such as the recent Koslanda tragedy.
However, Director of the National Building Research Organization’s (NBRO’s) Landslide Research and Risk Management Unit, R.M.S. Bandara, said the recent landslide area was identified as a disaster prone area long before the Uma Oya Project began. This identification was made in 2005.
 

The project began six years later in 2011.
Peradeniya University Vice Chancellor, Geology Professor Athula Senaratna, adding to Bandara’s view said the drilling methodology used to bore through the mountains to build a 21 km tunnel to carry the water is new, and it is causing minimal impact to the environment.
“It’s not the traditional blasting methodology that is being used to drill through the mountain. The vibration impact is minimal,” he said. 

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