The flood receded in the Godavari River at Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage at Dowleswaram and rose in the Krishna River at Pulichintala and Prakasam Barrage.

The discharge at Arthur Cotton Barrage gradually came down to 14.10 lakh cusecs at 7 p.m. At Bhadrachalam upstream, the level fell to 39.5 ft, 3.5 ft below the first warning level of 43 ft, making the authorities withdraw the second warning.

The flood discharge has to, however, fall by another one lakh cusecs — 13 lakh cusces— for the second warning to be withdrawn at Arthur Cotton Barrage.

Cutting it close

The level in the river at Kunavaram and Polavaram was also falling indicating that there would not be an increase in the flood at the Cotton Barrage in the next 24 hours.

The Srisailam reservoir, which received 3,90,830 cusecs from two upstream reservoirs Jurala (on Krishna River) and Tungabhadra (on a tributary with the same name) had to discharge 4,24,530 cusecs to ensure that water did not flow over the gates that were not raised. The authorities managed with a flood cushion of mere 0.15 tmcft at the dam as the maximum capacity of the spillway was over 13 lakh cusecs (38,369 cumecs) as per design.

Some irrigation experts said that the spillway withstood a flood of 23 lakh cusecs in 2009.

The Nagarjuna Sagar Project, which had a flood cushion of just 2.39 tmcft, received an inflow of 3,30,067 cusecs and had to discharge 4,13,067 cusecs to ensure there was not overflowing.

Similarly, the Pulichintala project having a flood cushion of just 1.64 tmcft, received 3,83,002 cusecs and discharged the same quantity.

The inflows to Prakasam Barrage, which received nearly two lakh cusecs, will be discharging more than 3.5 lakh cusecs by Wednesday morning.