IMD issues fresh rain alert for five battered districts of Maharashtra

PUNE: The IMD has once again issued a heavy-to-very heavy rainfall (115.6mm-204.4mm) alert for five Maharashtra districts, which were recently battered by torrential rain, landslides and floods.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a heavy-to-very heavy rain alert at isolated places in Raigad and Ratnagiri districts on July 30-31. Pune, Kolhapur and Satara districts have a similar warning for their ghat areas, where several landslides were recently reported.

The Central Water Commission (CWC) on Tuesday said the Panchaganga, Warna, Krishna and Yerala rivers were already flowing within the danger and highest flood levels at five places in the state.
State water resources minister Jayant Patil told TOI, “It can be a difficult situation if the quantum of rain is again like the recent spells. If the rain remains in the limit of 200-300 mm in a 24-hour period, we may be able to cope. But it will be difficult to manage anything beyond that, like 400mm or more in a 24-hour period.”
Patil said, “We have told the IMD to get more details about the upcoming heavy rain on July 30-31. In the meantime, we are trying to reduce the dam levels in the state by gradually releasing water before the heavy rains.”
One worry was the heavy rainfall in the free catchment areas (area ahead of the dam’s wall). “This time, the heavy rain was concentrated in free catchment areas. For example, the rainfall on July 23 was almost 719mm at Navaja near the Koyna dam. But the rainfall in around 50km of the dam was around 250-300 mm. Around 70% water that flowed into the rivers was due to the rain from the free catchment area. We had also curbed the releases from the dam to manage the situation,” Patil said.
The rain in the free catchment areas and the gushing water from this region caused flooding in Ratnagiri’s Chiplun. Heavy downpour in the Sahyadri ranges and the Koyna region had flooded the shallow rivers of the coastal Konkan region, causing floods in Raigad and Ratnagiri districts during the recent spells.
Patil said though the water was gradually being released from the state’s dams, it was not receding fast enough at some places. “We are waiting for the water levels to go down in the Sangli city area and Shirol taluka in Kolhapur. In addition, water release from Rajapur dam has gone up to 3.28 lakh cusecs. This is also the maximum release amount,” he said.
State relief and rehabilitation secretary Aseem Kumar Gupta told TOI that a major worry was landslides and the authorities were planning for any emergency. “Floods can still be managed and people can be evacuated in time. But landslides are unpredictable and sudden. We, however, have enough forces to tackle any emergency,” he said.
Anupam Kashyapi, head of the weather, IMD, Pune told TOI, “Fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with isolated heavy falls are very likely over Konkan and Goa and the ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra during the next two days and may increase to isolated heavy to very heavy falls over the region from July 29. The rain will be a result of the low pressure area over the north Bay of Bengal. This is likely to become a well marked low pressure area over the north Bay of Bengal and adjoining Bangladesh and slowly move westwards across West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar during the subsequent 48 hours.”