Heavy rains in the upper catchment areas have resulted in swelling of water levels in major rivers in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday with threat of flood looming under Vamsadhara in far-off Srikakulam district in particular.
Water flow at Gotta Barrage on Vamsadhara touched 91,054 cusecs on Wednesday evening, consequent to which the second warning signal has been issued.
Heavy rain in Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts and in neighbouring Odisha state under the influence of a depression in the Bay of Bengal, is also compounding the woes.
"The inflow is still rising and is expected to touch 1.3 lakh cusecs. That is some cause for concern, but we have alerted all villagers along the river course to remain safe," Srikakulam district Collector J Nivas told PTI over phone.
He said relief camps have been opened in four villages as a precautionary measure to move affected people.
At Thotapalli Barrage on river Nagavali, 41,439 cusecs of water was flowing in while 50,125 cusecs was being discharged.
Here too, the second warning level was continuing but the flood flow showed signs of receding.
After remaining stable over the last two days, the river Godavari started rising once again due to copious rains in the upper catchment areas in Maharashtra and Telangana.
The first warning signal remained in place at Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage at Dowaleswaram with an inflow and discharge of close to 10.50 lakh cusecs.
At the Polavaram project construction site, the Godavari level touched 27.01 meters on Wednesday evening, according to the State Disaster Management Authority.
On the other side, river Krishna is also in full flow with bountiful floodwater from the upper riparian states coming into the reservoirs in Andra Pradesh.
Srisailam has been the major beneficiary with an inflow of 2.81 lakh cusecs from upstream Almatti, Narayanpur and Jurala.
Flood discharge was 3.90 lakh cusecs at Almatti in Karnataka and 2.86 lakh cusecs at Jurala in Telangana.
As a result, water level at Srisailam touched 872.5 feet on Wednesday against the full reservoir level of 885 ft, with a storage of 152.16 tmc ft (215 tmc ft of gross capacity).
With increased inflow, the right and left bank power stations at Srisailam have been made operational and over 82,612 cusecs was being discharged downstream and into other channels that take water to Rayalaseema region in the state.
The Nagarjuna Sagar dam downstream on Krishna is receiving an inflow of about 75,000 cusecs, but it is still way short of its FRL of 312 tmc ft as the current storage is just about 134 tmc ft.
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