1000-Year-old temple lifted 6 feet using 400 screw jacks to get rid of waterlogging

Mangalore Today News Network / News18

Alappuzha, May 27, 2023: In an architectural and technological feat, Mankombu Sree Bhagavathy Temple in Alappuzha, which is nearly 1000 years old, was raised some six feet off the ground using screw jacks without affecting the temple’s antiquity. This process would cost around Rs 3 and a half crore, according to sources.

 

The authorities tried this method as the temple had been gradually losing its height and waterlogging posed a menace in completing daily poojas. One of the major temples in the Kuttanad area in central Kerala, located below sea level, will finally get rescued from the marshy land and regular waterlogging that had sunk the structure by more than three feet in the past decade by this.

During the 2018 flood, water gushed up to Devi’s idol and the temple compound remained submerged for an entire year causing massive inconvenience to the devotees.

The committee, after getting the nod of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) to raise the temple structure while keeping it intact, roped in the Kochi-based engineering firm EDSS to lift the sanctum sanctorum (Sreekovil) around 1.8m off the surface using screw jacks.

Jose Francis, the CEO of the firm, told New Indian Express that 400 screw jacks were used to lift the temple and they are building 18 piles and beams to rest the sreekovil on it.

Each pile would be drilled 27m deep and the entire structure will sustain any natural calamity. The committee is planning to raise other buildings on the premises too.