The flood in the Krishna River has been coming down gradually with inflows to Almatti in Karnataka and other reservoirs downstream registering a downward trend.

As of Sunday evening, Almatti was discharging only two lakh cusecs and Srisailam was handling an inflow and outflow of 5.69 lakh cusecs. As per flood forecast, the inflows were gradually falling at all the reservoirs.

The Nagarjuna Sagar Project too was handling 4.22 lakh cusecs of inflow and outflow. The inflow at the Pulichintala project was 5.16 lakh cusecs. Over 5.50 lakh cusecs was being released while maintaining a flood cushion of 9.31 tmcft. As a result, the inflows to Prakasam Barrage also came down to 5.48 lakh cusecs from 6.43 lakh cusecs on Saturday evening.

Minister promises help

The outflow from the barrage was 6.23 lakh cusecs. However, several residential areas in the city and other mandals, agriculture fields in Krishna and Guntur districts were still under a sheet water.

Water Resources department officials estimate that it would take a day for the inflow and outflow to come down by one lakh cusecs.

Home Minister M. Sucharita, who inspected a relief camp in Guntur district, said the government was able to avoid loss of life with effective flood relief management. Two persons died in Guntur and Krishna districts. She promised all help to farmers and people on behalf of the government until normalcy returns. She said 34 villages of 18 mandals in Krishna and 53 villages of 14 mandals in Guntur were affected and thousands of acres of agriculture and horticulture crops were damaged. As per the AP State Disaster Management Authority’s preliminary damage report, 4,235 houses in Krishna and 537 houses in Guntur were submerged and over 20,000 people were taking shelter in relief camps.