Vizag airport floods: AAI seeks district officials' intervention

VIJAYAWADA: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials sought intervention of district administration to resolve the flooding of Visakhapatnam airport on Wednesday. They asked the district officials not to discharge huge quantities of water from Meghadri Gedda reservoir especially during heavy rains in order to prevent inundation of the airport.

Recently, the Visakhapatnam International Airport, which operates 24 to 25 aircrafts per day to Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Port Blair, Vijayawada and others, was inundated with flood waters from the reservoir. Outer premises of the airport was filled with one feet deep water for some time due to the heavy rainfall caused by Cyclone Gulab.

Fortunately, as the flood water did not inundate the runway and other vital facilities, hence operation of flights was not affected in a big way except for delayed arrival and departure of aircrafts.

Upon inquiry, the AAI authorities came to know that the water resources authorities lifted the gates of the reservoir to discharge a huge amount of water at a stretch in the wake of the reservoir receiving a huge inflow of water. They say that normally the authorities release water in a regulated manner by lifting the gates one after another but as they allowed discharge of water at a time, gushing water reached the airport, affecting its operations partially.

The AAI authorities are going write a letter to the Visakhapatnam district collector shortly with a request to initiate requisite measures to resolve the issue of flooding of airport especially by waters from the reservoir during heavy rainfall as Visakhapatnam district, along with two more north coastal districts, is highly susceptible to series of chronic storms of late.

Visakhapatnam airport director K. Srinivasa Rao said, “We told the water resources authorities to address the issue immediately and not to repeat the same as it involves in affecting the operation of aircrafts. Moreover, we will write a letter to the collector seeking his intervention to resolve the issue.”