Heavy flood swells Srisailam storage

Heavy to very heavy rains in the upstream likely to get more flood

July 24, 2021 09:16 pm | Updated 09:16 pm IST - HYDERABAD

The gopuram (top portion) of the sanctum sanctorum of the Sangameswaram Temple was visible in the back waters of Srisailam Reservoir on Saturday morning, before it got fully submerged.

The gopuram (top portion) of the sanctum sanctorum of the Sangameswaram Temple was visible in the back waters of Srisailam Reservoir on Saturday morning, before it got fully submerged.

The prospects of Srisailam reservoir, one of the two common water storage facilities of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, reaching the surplus position have improved considerably with the catchment areas in the Upper Krishna Basin continue to record heavy to very heavy rainfall.

“Storage of the reservoir improved by nearly 20 tmc ft during the 36-hour period till 6 p.m. on Saturday, in spite of sizeable amount of water being let downstream with power generation in the Left Bank power house. The discharge of flood at Almatti, Narayanpur and Jurala dams in the upstream is on the constant rise during the period and there is a forecast of flood into Jurala going up to 5 lakh cusecs or beyond,” a senior engineer monitoring flood at Srisailam told The Hindu.

At 6 p.m. on Saturday, Srisailam storage has reached 93.6 tmc ft against its capacity of 215.8 tmc ft with almost one tmc ft volume of flood reaching it every hour from 11 a.m. Although the discharge of flood at Almatti remained at 3.5 lakh cusecs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., the inflow increased from 2.2 lakh cusecs to 2.57 lakh cusecs during the period with the forecast of further rise in the flood.

An advisory of the Central Water Commission (CWC) stated that 28.7 cm was recorded at Mahabaleshwar, 28.5 cm at Warana, 20.4 cm at Koyna, 13.6 cm at Sadalga and 9.1 cm at Agumbe, the major catchment areas of Krishna and some of its tributaries, during the 24-hour period till 8.30 a.m. on Saturday.

Along with the discharge of flood at Almatti, Narayanpur is forecast to get additional flood with the help of outflows from Kallol Barrage, Ghataprabha and Malaprabha dams. Inflow into Narayanpur is likely to be over 4 lakh cusecs by Sunday and the discharge of flood to be 4.5 lakh cusecs, flood monitoring officials at Jurala said.

Flood to Jurala increased from 2.25 lakh cusecs to 3.33 lakh cusecs during the 12-hour period till 6 p.m. on Saturday. Flood cushion in Tungabhadra dam has also come down to 25 tmc ft by Saturday evening.

SRSP gates closed

Meanwhile, some respite in rains in the catchment areas of Godavari has receded the flood to 52,000 cusecs at 8 p.m. and the spillway gates were closed around 7 p.m. to build up storage in the reservoir. Only 8,000 cusecs was being let into the river course at the dam with power generation. Inflow into Yellampally Barrage has also come donw 2.32 lakh cusecs and discharge to 1.76 lakh cusecs as at 8 p.m. on Saturday.

At Medigadda Barrage, in the downstream of Yellampally, of Kaleshwaram project the discharge of flood was 9.06 lakh cusecs at 8 p.m.

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