Heavy downpour keeps officials on toes

KARIMNAGAR: The district administrations of four districts - Karimnagar, Jagtial, Peddapalli and Rajanna Sircilla - became alert and are taking all precautionary measures to prevent any untoward incident in view of red alert issued by the meteorological department to all four districts in erstwhile Karimnagar.

Several low-lying areas, colonies and villages on the outskirts of municipalities of four districts were inundated and roads in many areas were waterlogged, halting vehicular movement as heavy rains have been lashing for the past few days.

In Karimnagar city, as Kothirampur Road was inundated, the police placed barricades and are trying hard along with the municipal staff to divert water from Padmanagar Colony as it is entirely submerged in rainwater. Revenue officials warned the villages surrounding Erukulla Wagu that the bund of the lake might breach at any time with heavy inflow of flood water.

District collector R.V. Karnan chaired a review meeting with the officials concerned and directed the officials of the irrigation department to supervise the situation of lakes time-to-time and take preventive measures by keeping sandbags ready to block the bunds if any leakage occurred due to heavy rains.

As drinking water supplied through Mission Bhagiratha pipelines from Agraharam water filtering station is getting contaminated, executive engineer of irrigation department of Rajanna Sircilla district Vijay Kumar, appealed to the people of Sircilla, Vemulawada and Choppadandi constituencies to drink the water after boiling and cooling it, using water filters.

To prevent any untoward incident and save the people in Sircilla town, the municipal staff, under the supervision of commissioner Sammaiah, diverted the floodwater by cutting the first by-pass road and allowed the water to flow out of town.

Jagtial district collector G. Ravi said of the 1,100 lakes in the district, around 750 lakes were overflowing with the recent heavy rains. After identifying 10 flood-affected villages in the surroundings of the Godavari river, as many as 2,300 people were evacuated and shifted to rehabilitation centres safely.

District superintendent of police Sindhu Sharma said they stopped vehicular movement by closing around 37 roads since the floodwater was flowing at dangerous levels. Once the flow of water subsided, they would be re-opened. Until then, people should not take any risk by venturing out, she appealed.

Peddapalli district collector Dr. Sangita directed the officials of irrigation department to be alert 24 hours in view of heavy inflow of water into the barrages under Kaleshwaram project. If water must be released in large quantities from the barrages, then the officials must alert the people living in the surroundings of the barrages and evacuate people of flood-affected villages and shift them to the rehabilitation centres, she said.

She directed the officials to take immediate steps to shift villagers of Bestaplli which was totally inundated in the floodwater and to provide all basic facilities at the rehabilitation centres.