The devastating floods in Kerala have hardly begun their retreat, but the flood of empathy and cooperation seems to be receding already and being replaced with blame games. The Kerala government is blaming Tamil Nadu’s refusal to reduce the storage in its Mullaperiyar dam in anticipation of the heavy rain and the sudden release of water from it for the flooding of the Idukki valley and areas downstream of it. But Tamil Nadu has countered saying it was Kerala which had refused it permission to gauge the rainfall in the Mullaperiyar dam catchment and it had a right to retain water in the dam upto 142 ft. It contends that water from Kerala’s own independent catchment areas and the sudden release of water from the Idukki hydro-electric dam is the main cause of the flooding.