Kurnool: With heavy inflows into the Tungabhadra dam (TB), the TB Board has put out the first flood warning message to officials of districts downstream, asking them to take preventive steps at villages on the river bed.
Kurnool is expecting a flood as the gates of the dam were lifted and 50,000 cusecs of water released. The quantum may go up to 1 lakh cusecs due to the heavy rain in the catchment area of the dam in Karnataka.
The TB dam is receiving 2.1 lakh cusecs of water and has 76.37 tmc ft against the total capacity of 100.84 TMC ft of water.
In the meantime, in a reminder of the 2009 floods, flood water of the Krishna river discharged from the Jurala project to Srisailam has reached the Jammichettu area near Kurnool. Sensing danger, irrigation engineers at Srisailam dam responded quickly and arranged for lifting of gates.
This is the first time in the last 10 years that such massive floodwater flow has been witnessed, said irrigation officer Vijaya Kumar. The water inflow of 2.1 lakh cusecs is also a record in the last decade.
Srisailam too is receiving a record 5,87,420 cusecs of water from Jurala and the water level has reached 883 feet against the full reservoir level of 885 feet.
The dam now has 204.78 tmc ft of water against its capacity of 215.81 tmc ft. Officials have opened 10 gates to release 4,25,561 cusecs to Nagar-junasagar.
