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Kalmadu Tank |
Kalmadu Tank, also known as Kalmadu Wewa or Kalmadu Kulam (Sinhala: කල්මඩු වැව, Tamil: கல்மடு குளம்) is a reservoir in Kilinochchi and Mullaitive districts, Sri Lanka. Built by impounding the waters of Nethali Aru stream, it is situated about 6 km east of Iranamadu Wewa Tank. It belongs to the Kandawalai DS Division.
History
The builder of this tank is not known. It was built by damming a low swamp (madu) at a rocky (kal) site (Arumugam, 1969). The tank was restored between the years 1951 and 1953 (Arumugam, 1969; Sivakumar, 2015). In January 2009, the tank bund was exploded by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), a militant group designated as a terrorist organization by several countries including Sri Lanka, India, the USA and the EU (Sivakumar et al., 2011). However, the LTTE was defeated in May the same year and the tank was restored by the government in 2012.
The Reservoir
Kalmadu Wewa is one of the reservoirs located in the Nethali Aru River Basin (Sivakumar, 2015; Sivakumar et al., 2011). Its water storage capacity is 11.7 mcm impounded by a 1,575 km long earth embankment with a maximum height of 8 m (Sivakumar et al., 2011). The bund top level, high flood level and full supply level are respectively 32.46 m, 31.40 m and 30.18 m from mean sea level [(msl) Sivakumar, 2015; Sivakumar et al., 2011]. The tank has a catchment area of 68 sq. kms and it is covered mainly by jungle. The present tank has one spill and two sluices. Both sluices are corn tower type with spill level of 22.9 m msl (Sivakumar et al., 2011).
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References
Books, Journal Articles
1) Arumugam, S., 1969. Water resources of Ceylon: its utilisation and development. Water Resources Board. p.282.
2) Sivakumar, S.S., 2015. Environmental mitigation measures in post conflict water resource development with special reference to restoration of Kalmadu Irrigation Scheme in Northern Sri Lanka. Twenty first Annual Session of Jaffna Science Association, University of Jaffna, Volume: 21.
3) Sivakumar, S.S., Janen, S.S. and Suthakaran, N., 2011. Restoration and improvement of blasted Kalmadu dam and its socio-economic impact on the displaced northern community. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Sessions, Geological Society of Sri Lanka.
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Kalmadu tank bund by Jagath Abesekara is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.