For the first time this decade, Srisailam reservoir officials released over seven lakh cusecs of water in a 24-hour period by lifting 10 crest gates to the height of 33 feet.
The dam has seen huge flood water coming into it in the past three days as torrential rains in Maharashtra and upper reaches of Krishna river filled up Narayanapur dam in Karnataka and Jurala project in Telangana state to the brim.
Jurala has a live capacity of just 6.79 tmc and its full reservoir level is 318.52 tmc. As per Central Water Commission (CWC) alert, the flood trend on the Srisailam reservoir was steady with 4,85,485 cusecs coming into the reservoir from Jurala and Sunkesula barrage across Tungabhadra river near Kurnool.
Srisailam dam opened 10 spillway gates to a height of 20 feet on Sunday and 5,10,597 cusecs of water. The reservoir level is 884.60 feet against the total height of 885 feet. The present storage at the dam is 213.4011 tmc.
A retired engineer, who worked at Srisailam, found fault with the authorities for holding so much water in the reservoir. He raised concern that it is against flood management and would have a devastating impact on the structural stability of the dam.
The water release from the Srisailam dam left several residential houses in Lingala Gattu village of Kurnool district inundated. People were shifted to relief homes in Sunnipenta.
Around 450 Lingala Gattu locals, who mostly depend on fisheries, were in the grip of fear. However, revenue and police officials reached the area and alerted the villagers. The official team observed the flood situation and made arrangements for supply of food and drinking water.
Srisailam tahsildar B. Rajendra Singh said that with heavy inflows at Srisailam reservoir, the officials released seven lakh cusecs of water into Nagarjunasagar Friday morning but the outflows were reduced to below six lakh by evening due to drastic fall of inflows. He said that nearly 50 houses were inundated as they were constructed on the edge of the river. He said that there is no threat to the village. They have set up relief centres at Sunnipenta village, he said.
