Godavari crosses third warning level at Bhadrachalam

The water level crossed the 53 feet mark at 4.16 pm and at 7 pm the water level was 53.30 feet with a discharge of 14.40 lakh cusecs.

Kothagudem: Officials issued a third warning as river Godavari crossed the third warning level at Bhadrachalam in the district on Saturday. This was the first time that the river crossed the third warning level in this season.

The water level crossed the 53 feet mark at 4.16 pm and at 7 pm the water level was 53.30 feet with a discharge of 14.40 lakh cusecs. As forecast indicates further rise the district administration was on alert. Due increase in water level several villages in Bhadrachalam, Cherla, Burgampad and Dummugudem mandals were inundated while transportation was cut off to many villages.

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District Collector Jithesh V Patil informed that the people in the flood-prone villages were moved to the relief centres. All the district officials and flood duty officers were told to stay in their place of work to carry out relief operations. Due to heavy rains in the upper reaches of the Godavari in the last four days, release of nine lakh cusecs of water from the Medigadda, with floods in Indravati, Taliperu, Jampannavagu and Peddavagu Godavari was receiving huge inflows, said additional Collector Venu Gopal.

Residents of New Colony, AMC Colony and Ashok Nagar in Bhadrachalam were evacuated and moved to relief centre at Nannapaneni Mohan School. He asked the people to inform the flood control rooms as soon as the Godavari floods hit their colonies to deploy NDRF teams to shift them to relief centres. Bhadrachalam ITDA project officer B Rahul made a surprise inspection of relief centre at Nannapaneni Mohan School. He told the personnel to serve quality food to the villagers shifted to the centre.

Officials have lifted 24 gates of Taliperu medium irrigation project in Cherla mandal to discharge 113752 cusecs of excess water. Four gates of Kinnerasani reservoir at Paloncha would be lifted at 10 pm on Saturday to discharge 16, 000 cusecs of excess water, officials said.

Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao along with the Collector Patil, SP B Rohith Raju and ITDA PO Rahul inspected flood affected areas and the newly constructed embankment in Bhadrachalam on Saturday.