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A Krishna river swells, officials sound flood alert for Vijaywada
A warning was issued after a crest gate of Dr KL Rao Sagar Pulichintala Project on the Krishna river, located upstream of the barrage, collapsed on Thursday. Consequently, a large quantity of water from Pulichintala was released downstream.
Residents living in and around the banks of the Krishna river are at a major risk of inundation as a first flood warning has been issued due to heavy discharge from the Prakasam Barrage here on Friday, 0officials said.
The warning was issued after a crest gate of Dr KL Rao Sagar Pulichintala Project on the Krishna river, located upstream of the barrage, collapsed on Thursday. Consequently, a large quantity of water from Pulichintala was released downstream.
The first flood warning was issued at noon on Friday at the Prakasam Barrage when outflow crossed 450k cusecs. All the 70 gates of the barrage have now been lifted to let out the surplus water, an official said.
Around 3:30 am, the officials lifted the crest gates of Pulichintala to release surplus water downstream. Gate No. 16 collapsed as the welding holding it to the dam structure gave away.
Taking stock of the situation and explaining the damage caused at Pulichintala, Andhra Pradesh minister for water resources, P Anil Kumar Yadav, said, “It all happened in a blink of an eye. Repair works of the 16th gate have been taken up on a war footing and we expect the alternative stop-lock arrangement will be in place soon after the water recedes downstream. At present, flood discharge is 600k cusecs downstream of the project. The full reservoir level of Pulichintala is 45 TMC, and repairs can be done only after the water level is below 10 TMC.”
The officials also lifted 14 other crest gates of Pulichintala to release floodwater downstream. The minister and the officials felt that it was unfortunate that such a huge quantity of water had to be released into the sea as there is no other alternative. However, they are confident that water in the project will be replenished in the coming days with more inflows from upstream as the monsoon season is only halfway.
An NDRF team of 24 personnel have joined hands with Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) to evacuate residents of Bhupesh Gupta Nagar, Taraka Rama Nagar, Ranigari Thota and other areas in Krishna Lanka of Vijayawada city.
The VMC officials visited the colonies and alerted the people to move to the Indira Gandhi Municipal Corporation Stadium where a rehabilitation centre has been arranged. They made arrangements to provide food, drinking water and other facilities to the displaced families.
However, most families were resisting shifting to a rehabilitation centre due to fear of theft. The residents say they are habituated to floods and will take shelter on the Karakatta (flood bank) for two to four days till floodwater recedes.
The officials tried to convince the residents that there is a fear of major inundation as over half a million cusecs of floodwater is being released. The VMC also arranged 11 tractors to evacuate people to the stadium, and staff has been deployed to raise awareness among the residents on the flood threat.
Meanwhile, work of the installation of stop-lock arrangements commenced on Friday afternoon and using a heavy crane, iron plates were being inserted into the groves at sluice number 16, where the flood gate broke and washed away.
Project senior engineer Ramesh Babu said that the water level has to decrease to 37 metres. “Only at that point, the stop lock gate fitting works can be started. It takes 10-15 hours to fit the gate,” he explained. On the other hand, the government has constituted a committee with retired engineers to identify the reasons leading to the accidents and also to assess project safety.
