A land where wine flows like water may sound like an epicurean’s paradise. However, in Kerala, this 'utopia' turned into a shocking reality for 18 families living in a residential building in Chalakkudy, when a foul-smelling mixture of water and liquor started pouring out of their taps on Monday morning.
On Sunday evening, residents of the Solomon’s Avenue apartment near the KSRTC bus stand in Thrissur’s Chalakkudy noticed that their building was smelling of alcohol. The very next day, they received a rude shock as their drinking water started smelling and tasting like liquor.
The mystery was swiftly solved and culprits were identified as a bunch of excise officials from Irinjalakuda, who callously disposed off 6000 litres of beer and other spirits into a pit next to the apartment.
“Next to our apartment is the Rachana Bar. Six years ago, this bar was shut down and their liquor stock sealed by the excise department. Now, the department completed the formalities related to disposal of the liquor and officials poured all the sealed liquor into a pit they had dug up within the compound,” Joshy Malliyekkal, the building owner of Solomon’s Avenue apartment tells TNM.
Unfortunately, the pit was dug close to the apartment’s open well, only separated by a compound wall. On pouring the liquor, it mixed with the soil and flowed into the apartment’s open well, spoiling over 20,000 litres of drinking water used regularly by the 18 families.
“We use water from the well for cooking, drinking, bathing and everything else. At 4 am on Monday, our neighbours who have school going children rang us up and said that water from the taps smelled bad. The mother was getting ready to cook for the children when she noticed the smelly water. Soon, all 18 families had the same complaint,” says Joshy.
Following the incident, the residents had to suspend all activities as they had no access to drinking water from the open well.
“We have office going adults, senior citizens, new born babies and school children. The whole apartment was paralysed because of this careless act by the excise department,” he added.
On Sunday evening, the residents complained to the Chalakudy police and Municipality and health officials tested the well water to confirm the presence of liquor.
Following this, 5000 litres of drinking water was supplied in tankers to the apartment. This was continued on Tuesday with water being supplied by the municipality in the morning and evening.