When a sudden tremor-like jolt and a wet floor startled Rahul Raghunath, 32, from his sleep around 2:30 a.m. on Monday (November 10, 2025), for a fleeting moment he feared whether “the Mullaperiyar dam has burst.”
Still gripped by fear and half-asleep, a mild electric shock jolted him fully awake. Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to switch off a soaked extension cord lying on the floor. He rushed outside, only to find his neighbourhood flooded.
Massive water tank collapse at Thammanam in Kochi floods houses; vehicles damaged
“I was left wondering whether this was the watery grave everyone has been warning about for years. After getting over that scare, I started thinking whether I had forgotten to switch off the motor the previous night, causing an overflow,” recalls Rahul, a freelance video editor living in a rented house on Kulathingal Bava Road in the Thammanam division of Kochi Corporation. He says he lost his computer, worth about ₹1 lakh, in the incident.
A flood-like situation unfolded after a massive amount of water gushed out following a breach in the Kerala Water Authority’s (KWA) over-four-decade-old water storage tank in Thammanam, inundating the immediate neighbourhood and affecting more than 20 houses.
