GVMC officials prepared to plug a massive breach on the Yeleru canal near Makavarapalem on Friday evening after limiting water supply to the city.
Officials drew up an ingenious plan to ensure that there was as little disruption of water supply to the city as possible.
“It takes three days for water to reach this point from the Yeleru reservoir, which is 90 km away. So even if we halt the water supply at the reservoir, repairs cannot be taken up for the next three days. That is why we erected a cross-bund for diversion of water at the affected stretch and created a temporary breach so as to commence repairs on the main canal,” GVMC officials said.
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Three machines and six tipplers were readied to plug the six-metre breach. Officials from GVMC visited the site of the breach on Friday. The repairs are expected to be completed by Saturday afternoon.
Believed to have occurred sometime on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, the leak developed into a six-meter breach by afternoon. It is estimated that about 75 MGD of water went waste owing to the breach. Immediate measures were taken for regulating the release but water that had already been released from the reservoir continued to flow.
To prevent any time lag in restoring the supply, water was again released on Friday evening from the reservoir since the plugging of the breach and closure of the temporary breach was expected to be completed by Saturday afternoon.
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