Hyderabad: Authorities in several districts of Telangana were on high alert as the state’s major river, Godavari, was in spate following unprecedented rains over the past week.
While all the major dams were overflowing and their floodgates were opened, one of them, under construction Mid Maner project in Karimnagar district suffered huge damage due to the massive inflow of floodwater.
Its bund caved in, causing floods in many villages including Manwada, Putturu, Mallapur and Kandikatkur.
In one of the biggest evacuation operation in the state, authorities have moved more than 12,000 people to safer places from several villages under the Mid Maner project and they were being sheltered in relief camps. Two teams of National Disaster Relief Force were also deployed in the affected areas to help in rescue operations.
Officials said that while the capacity of the project was only 3 TMC ft of water, 200,000 cusecs water had reached it creating a serious situation.
In Medak the authorities took the help of Indian Air Force helicopters to rescue 24 labourers stuck in the floods in Manjira river at Tekulagadda on Sunday.
The labourers belonging to Odisha and Bihar were lifted by the helicopters and dropped a safer place where they were being provided shelter, food and medical care.
In view of the grim flood situation, the state cabinet meeting was cancelled and the Chief Minister directed all the ministers to stay in their respective districts monitoring the situation and coordinating relief works.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao flew to Karimnagar to personally review the situation. He undertook an aerial survey of the flood-hit villages before reviewing the situation at a high-level meeting at the district collector’s office in Karimnagar city.
Meanwhile all the big dams of Telangana including Nizam Sagar, Sriram Sagar and Jurala project were filled to capacity and massive amounts of water were being released from them.
In Nizamabad district, 12 of the 48 gates of Nizam Sagar were opened releasing 60,000 cusecs to Manjira reservoir. It was after a gap of ten long years that the water was released from this project.
As Sriramsagar had also reached near the maximum capacity, authorities were releasing 415,000 cusecs of water causing the spate in Godavari river. The dam was reaching the maximum level of 90.31 tmcft.
State agriculture minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy said that 78 major and medium projects had reached the full level brightening the prospects for the agriculture sector.
Srisailam, the second biggest dam in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana was also finally set to reach the maximum levels as the inflows have reached 19,5000 cusecs following the massive release of water from Jurala project across river Krishna.
Against the maximum level of 270 metres, the water level in Srisailam project had reached 268 metres. Against the total capacity of 215.807 TMC ft, the level of water had reached 185 TMC ft. it is after several years that there were bright prospect of the dam getting completely filled following the heavy rains in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra this month.
Authorities were releasing 31,226 cusecs water from Srisailam to generate 103MW power through 7 hydro power units on Andhra Pradesh side and another 35,315 cusecs water on Telangana side to generate 150MW power through six units.
Meanwhile, the water released from Srisailam has also started reaching Nagarjuna Sagar dam, the biggest project in the two states. The project, which had completed dried up, was now receiving 73,000 cusecs of water.
Meanwhile, the Indian Meteorological Department has forecast more rains over next three days in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana under the influence of the low pressure which presently lay centred over Vidarbha and Telangana.
