Volcanic winter and pandemic pandemonium
New tech to help dams withstand natural disasters
Thankachen Thottathil, a small-scale metal crusher businessman for more than 25 years who has worked for several industries and CIAL, has come up with new technology to make dams and bridges that can withstand natural disasters. According to him, a dam wall can be built at a certain distance from the existing Mullaperiyar Dam, by connecting both sides of the reservoir.
The first step is to build a dam wall on the reservoir up to the maximum allowed depth of water, which impedes rooting mud and other debris in the bottom. Use 120 mm granite powder by combining sized granite materials the mixture. Stir this with the help of specially prepared missionaries attached to the control valves from the bottom of the dam to the top through the iron pipe deposit and apply vibrations underwater…
Volcanic winter and pandemic pandemonium
Believed to have originated in China and passed through India, the so-called ‘Plague of Justinian’ arrived in Constantinople in 542 through grain ships from Egypt Image: A map showing Justinian’s empire at its fullest extent. Picture: Tataryn/Wikimedia Common
In 527 CE, when Emperor Justinian and his formidable Empress Theodora were crowned at Constantinople, the capital of the vast East Roman – or Byzantine – Empire, the sky seemed the only limit to their ambitions.
By 534, they had codified centuries of Roman civil law and jurisprudence in the famous Corpus Juris Civilis that is today still the foundation of much civil law. December 537 saw the completion in Constantinople of the world’s largest church, the resplendent Hagia Sophia, built in less than six years.
And, after buying off the rival Sasanian Persian Empire for a healthy 11,000 pounds of gold, Justinian sent his armies west where in a series of spectacular military successes they restored much of the Western empire, including Italy and North Africa, previously lost to Germanic invaders.
By 540, his armies seemed poised to even reconquer all of Spain and Gaul. Is this the earliest depiction of a dodo in art? But a series of natural disasters, both environmental and bacterial, would rock Justinian’s renascent Roman Empire to its very core, drowning his dreams in an ocean of misery.
It would also leave the Emperor, much like many modern leaders today during COVID-19, copping a very mixed review for his handling of a sweeping pandemic…
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