Water levels receded on Tuesday in all the rivers and streams that were in spate in Coastal Andhra and North Telangana, but the floods continued to trouble people in East Godavari, West Godavari, Adilabad, Nizamabad, Warangal, Karimnagar and Khammam districts following a fresh spell of rain.
The death toll rose to 18, with more casualties being reported from districts and six in Hyderabad itself following a wall collapse at Moula Ali.
Adilabad district bore the brunt of the rain fury as Sirpur recorded 22 cm, Utnoor 20 cm, Asifabad 17 cm, Luxettipet and Khanapur 10 cm each. Units of National Disaster Response Force were rushed to the district and power supply switched off to about 100 villages to prevent mishaps. There was heavy rainfall at several places in Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam districts.
The situation remained grim in Konaseema island villages due to continuance of a heavy outflow (17 lakh cusecs) from Dowleswaram barrage. Reports received at the control room here said official teams could visit some of these villages and provide food and water packets. Many people were brought to mainland from the marooned villages using country boats.
Meanwhile, Srisailam project received its first share of the season’s inflows at the rate of 1.5 lakh cusecs following releases from Jurala, a project about 80 km upstream. The water level in Srisailam, as a result, has gone up to 821 ft (full level 885 ft).
C. Muralidhar, engineer-in-chief, Irrigation said the inflows both to Jurala and Srisailam were expected to persist for three to four days more due to the releases made at Almatti.
The hydel stations at Srisailam were likely to be pressed into service any time now, offering considerable relief to power consumers.
Although the inflows to Sriramsagar dwindled to 50,000 cusecs, Major Irrigation Minister P. Sudarshan Reddy ordered release of water from it into its Flood Flow Canal on Wednesday to supplement Lower Manair dam at Karimnagar and ensure supplies up to Suryapet in Nalgonda.
