19 submerged villages in Agency areas still remain cut off

All 24 gates of Jurala Project lifted; floodwater to touch Sangameswara temple before reaching Srisailam Dam
The Toyyeru village under Devipatnam mandal in East Godavari district lies submerged in rainwater on Wednesday I Express
The Toyyeru village under Devipatnam mandal in East Godavari district lies submerged in rainwater on Wednesday I Express

ELURU/KURNOOL: With increased inflows into River Godavari from upper reaches in Telangana, all the 19 villages in the Agency areas upstream of the Polavaram project site still remain cut off from the mainland. The police and revenue officials are finding it difficult to reach out to people to take up relief and rehabilitation works.

With the water flow damaging electric poles, power supply to the was cut and the villagers are forced to spend the night in darkness. With the water levels increasing and inundating their villages, people of Tekuru and Tutkunta started moving to temporary sheds in upland areas.

According to Polavaram project officials, the water level at the project touched 11.45 metres on Wednesday and 8.5 lakh cusecs of water is flowing into it. With the increasing inflows and narrow outlets at the spillway, the project officials have removed the bunds constructed to protect the spillways and are letting out water. With this, water is flowing through the sluices and entering the spillway channels.
Officials have also put in place earth movers ready to remove the bunds on the right side of spillways too if the flood flow increases.

With the water flowing slowly to the downstream, the 19 submergence villages of Polavaram project have been marooned, officials said adding that the revenue and police officials are unable to reach them in view of the heavy flow of water. Efforts to reach the village in tourism boats proved futile and the officials are trying to reach Paidipaka village above the spillways.

Meanwhile, officials said that the floodwater may inundate agriculture fields, if the flow increases.
Meanwhile, due to incessant rains in the catchment areas, the water level in River Godavari at Bhadrachalam, Devipatnam and other areas is on the rise. As a result, many villages in Devipatnam mandal have been submerged.

On the other hand, the wait for arrival of Krishna water into the Srisailam reservoir continues as Jurala project officials opened all the 24 gates paving the way for water to continue its course towards AP. Though it was initially expected that River Krishna water will reach Srisailam on Wednesday itself, officials are now expecting that the water will reach the project by Thursday afternoon.

The distance between Jurala and Srisailam is 180 km and under normal circumstances, the flood water takes 30 to 50 hours depending on velocity to reach the Srisailam dam.

Meanwhile, Sangameswaram temple priest T Raghurama Sharma said they are expecting Krishna water to touch the temple by early hours of Thursday. The temple is located at Sangameswaram village in Kothapalli mandal of Kurnool district where the Krishna water enters the district.

First, the water enters the district borders near Sathankota village and then it touches the Sangameswara Swamy temple.

Now, the Jurala project has received 1,90,000 cusecs of water from Almatti dam. There is 9.624 TMC ft of water in the reservoir while the total storage capacity is 9.657 TMC ft. The officials released 1,86,395 cusecs of water by lifting total 24 gates.

Increased inflows into Almatti Dam likely

The Central Water Commission (CWC), in its bulletin, said that due to the continuous rains in Maharashtra and rise in water levels in Krishna and its tributaries, there is a likelihood of increased inflows into Almatti Dam in the next 3-4 days. With the Narayanpur Dam very close to its FRL, precautions for release of water may be taken to avoid upstream and downstream submergence. Since the Srisailam Dam has very low storage, this spell will increase the storage in this dam. There are already continuous releases from Almatti and Narayanpur dams.

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