Water level rises at Andhra Pradesh's Prakasam Barrage

VIJAYAWADA:  There might be some respite from the heavy rains that pounded several coastal areas of the State with the IMD predicting light to moderate rains at several places of north coastal districts and at a few places of south coastal districts and Rayalaseema districts from Wednesday.

The IMD further said that thunderstorms along with lightning are likely to occur at isolated places in coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh. The IMD forecast fairly good weather for Wednesday and Thursday, with light to moderate rainfall in isolated places in the State. 

Meanwhile, with heavy rainfall across the State and in upper catchment areas of Krishna basin in Telangana and neighbouring States, the inflows to all major reservoirs have surged rapidly on Tuesday. According to officials, the first flood warning level at Prakasam Barrage in Vijayawada is expected to be issued early Wednesday morning as the officials expect over four lakh cusecs of inflows.

At 8 pm, Prakasam Barrage was getting 2.97 lakh cusecs of inflows and it is expected to surge past four lakh cusecs as inflows from tributaries of Krishna in Telangana such as Munneru, Paleru and others are steeply rising. At 6.30 pm, Munneru recorded an inflow of 2.97 lakh cusecs and it rose to 4.01 lakh cusecs by 8.30 pm. “Due to rainfall forecast, inflows to all dams in Krishna basin are likely to increase rapidly... Due to very heavy rainfall in its catchments, rivers Paleru, Munneru and its tributary Wyra are rising rapidly in Khammam district of Telangana and Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh,” the Central Water Commission’s advisory said on Tuesday. 

The CWC said that increased inflows to Narayanpur dam and Tungabhadra dam were witnessed. Srisailam reservoir, at 6 pm, recorded an inflow of 3.6 lakh cusecs with almost 1.69 lakh cusecs coming from Jurala. The outflow was 4.12 lakh cusecs and the reservoir has 213.35 TMC of water at 884.61 feet as against its full reservoir level storage of 215.81 TMC at 885 feet. Consequently, Nagarjuna Sagar, at 6 pm, was getting an inflow of 2.58 lakh cusecs and the outflow was 3.41 lakh cusecs. It has 310.55 TMC of water at 589.5 feet as against its FRL capacity of 312.05 TMC at 590 feet.

Inflows to Pulichintala project also shot up and was recorded to be 3.45 lakh cusecs at 6 pm. Its outflow stood at 3.04 lakh cusecs and the project has a flood cushion of 2.57 TMC as against its FRL of 45.77 TMC. “Musi dam in Suryapet is likely to receive very heavy inflows. Since the dam is filled up to 95 per cent, it is likely to increase its outflows heavily which may inundate areas in Suryapet and Nalgonda districts of Telangana as well as contributing in increasing the inflows to Pulichintala project in Guntur district,” the CWC said. Meanwhile, the inflow to Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage in Dowleswaram has also increased due to continuous rainfall. The barrage was discharging 2.07 lakh cusecs at 6 pm, according to officials.

Projects on Krishna close to attaining FRL
Since rainfall is expected all along the Krishna basin including its tributaries of Bhima and Tungabhadra for the next two-three days, all the dams in Krishna, Bhima and Tungabhadra sub-basins in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are close to attaining Full Reservoir Level (FRL), the CWC’s advisory said