State caught in river surge
Kurnool/Hyderabad
Oct. 1: Thousands of people living along the banks of the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers are being evacuated after unprecedented volumes of water started flowing down the two rivers.
The Central Water Resources Board has warned the Tungabhadra and Krishna river authorities that water inflow will reach 15 lakh cusecs by Friday morning. All 11 gates of the Srisailam dam were open and discharging a historic 11 lakh cusecs of water (a cusec is a cubic feet, or 28.31 litres of water, flowing per second). This is the highest water discharge from the dam: 6 lakh cusecs was released in 1976.
Officials are hoping that the government will allow them to lift the 12th gate at Srisailam to prevent water collecting in the reservoir, which will inundate Kurnool town and cause havoc upstream. The officials lifted all the gates on the river Krishna from Almatti, Tungabhadra and Narayanapur projects in Karnataka to Jurala in the state, Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar and Prakasam barrage.
The rusted gates of the Sunkesula barrage are also causing problems to officials. If Sunkesula is overwhelmed, half of Kurnool city will be submerged. The flow of water was so powerful that it washed away the Pulichintala coffer dam in Guntur district. The coffer dam, 32.5 metres high and 15 metres long, was washed away when 50,000 cusecs of water swamped it. It can handle only 20,000 cusecs.
As many as 16 persons were killed in floods caused by heavy downpour in several parts of the State, particularly Karimnagar, Mahbubnagar, Kurnool and Prakasam districts. Flood water from the Tungabhadra has entered the Mantralayam temple. The river has also entered the ancient Bala Brahmes-waralyam and Jogulamba temples at Alampur. “We were terrified but luckily our temple was strong,” said Mr Ananda Sarma, one of the priests of the Bala Brahmeswaralayam.
Weather men have forecast heavy rainfall in Telangana and North Coastal area on Friday too. According to officials, seven persons were killed in Karimnagar district, four in Prakasam, three in Kurnool and two persons in Mahbubnagar district.
A group of 14 students got stuck in the middle of Dundhubhi river in Mahbubnagar district. Bad weather hampered their rescue. Traffic on national highway No. 63 between Bellary and Guntakal came to a standstill with flood waters overflowing the highway at several points.
Uppanutala mandal recorded 32 cm of rain in just 12 hours. Achampet of Mahbubnagar district received 27 cm of rain. Kollapur, Wanaparthy, Alampur, Nagarkurnool, Jurala, Kurnool, Alur, Atmakur, Mantralaym and Yemmiganur got 15 cm to 22 cm of rainfall since Wednesday. Hyderabad received 0.14 cm rainfall. Hundreds of villages were inundated in Mahbubnagar and Kurnool districts following heavy rains in the catchment areas. Around 176 tanks were breached.
The minister for revenue, Mr Dharmana Prasada Rao, reviewed the situation in Secretariat has assured that the government would provide assistance to the flood victims and family members of the deceased.
Latest Comments
The cause of erratic rains and flash floods is all due drastic deforestion in catchment areas and lack of trees along water courses.Each tree is a mini dam against water flow and beside for storage by facilitating absorption. our forests are now no forests, they are poorly depleted in density, which needs to be restored. Now is the time to afforest or suffer more worst disasters in future year.
I hope the courageous people of Kurnool will emerge victorious in the battle with floods. Social workers, youth, politicians must cooperate with the officials and see that assistance reaches victims.
It is a pleasent thing to note that we had high rainfall. There might be some temporary problems with that and few people will be severely affected. But it is festive news. Again we have to let a lot of water into the sea this season. That is why the late YSR had planned for irrigation projects which none of his predecessors did. For that the great opposition, including socalled communists, have put innumerable hurdles with a view to disrupting the whole programme. If they had not done that, many projects could have been completed and the water out of this downpour could have been stored. Let the GOD bless the opposition for their achievement.
The other aspect is drought. Because of several reasons like deforestation and over-grazing, rains fail and result in either drought or a total famine. For avoiding that we need to have a strong minor irrigation network apart from medium and major irrigation projects. Strong minor irrigation will certainly avoid floods. The latest watershed management is a boon to avoid droughts, if implemented sicerely and efficiently. In that programme aerable and non-aerable land is treated in such a way that full soil and water conservation is achieved. Thus it is a foolproof method of avoiding drought and floods. Restoration of forests by reforestation and aforestation plays a big role. So there is lot of work for us to be done fast to live in a perfectly better quality of life. From personal fights, we need to proceed towards WORK for the betterment of our lives, and not always oportunistic way of behaviour.
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