The rain lashing the West Godavari district in the last two days posed a flood threat. District Collector Siddharth Jain convened an emergency meeting with the officials from the Irrigation, Revenue and the other departments here in the late night of Thursday to take stock of the situation relating to inflows in the major rivers and streams in the district.
Mr. Jain instructed the officials to keep a watch on the water levels in the Tammileru given its past devastating track record. He wanted the personnel to get ready for shifting the people living in low-lying areas in the city who were vulnerable to floods in the Tammileru.
According to the Assistant Engineer at the Nagireddygudem reservoir, there is no flood threat as of now. The water level was recorded at 336ft as against the full reservoir level of 355ft at the reservoir on Thursday. The official said 12mm of rainfall was recorded at the reservoir and 10mm at the Betupalli tank upstream the Tammileru. The officials are also closely monitoring the water levels in the Yerrakalva and Kovvada Kalva which are considered as the ‘Sorrow of the Upland region’.
Meanwhile, the heavy rain threw the public life out of gear in the city. A section of educational institutes wound up classes in the afternoon keeping in mind the safety of students as there appeared to be no let-up in the torrential rains. The traffic on the busy roads came to a standstill for several hours as they all remained under a sheet of floodwaters overflowing from the drains. People were seen wading through the knee-deep waters in areas such as Ramachandraraopet, Powerpet and government hospital areas.
