Anantpur: People of Mantralayam had anxious moments on Sunday following the sudden rise in the water level in the Tungabhadra river in just 30 minutes. This was the first time that people had seen such a flow in recent years.
Following heavy inflow of water from Shimoga and other parts of Karnataka, inflows in the Tungabhadra reservoir crossed 1.85 lakh cusecs. The dam currently has 97 tmc ft against its full capacity of 100.89 tmc ft.
TB dam authorities opened all 33 crest gates of the reservoir, releasing 2 lakh cusecs of water into the river. The outflow reached the borders of AP at Mantralayam in Kurnool district on Sunday afternoon.
Jayaram, a resident of Mantralayam observed that he had never seen such a heavy flow and the empty river filled up past the danger mark within minutes. Mantralayam Sri Raghavendra Swamy Math authorities alerted devotees keeping the 2009 floods in mind.
On Sunday, the math authorities deputed security men along the river side and did not permit devotees to enter the river. A revenue official observed the flow would be constant with no scope of rising further as was the case during the 2009 Mantralayam floods.
“No rainfall was reported in the area. But the river water is flowing towards Srisailam,” said the official. Kurnool officials alerted low-lying villages in Adoni division. Adoni revenue divisional officer Ramsundar Reddy alerted all tehsildars of river side mandals. The water likely to reach the Srisailam reservoir on Monday. Kurnool collector Vijaya Mohan said a control room had been set up to monitor the situation.
