Water level in river Godavari rising at Bhadrachalam, first warning issued

The water level which was at 39.50 feet at 8 am has reached 41.60 feet at 12 noon on Monday and was expected to touch the first warning level of 43 feet later in the day.

Kothagudem: Water level in river Godavari at Bhadrachalam in the district has been increasing rapidly with heavy rains in its upper catchment area for the past few days and crossed the first warning level.

The water level which was 39.50 feet at 8 am has reached 43.20 feet at 3.15 pm on Monday. At 7 pm the water level was 45.60 feet with a discharge of 10.36 lakh cusecs and the water level was expected to rise further. In view of the floods in the river, Transport Minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar telephoned the district officials and took stock of the situation.

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He directed the District Collector and other officials to be alert and be prepared to carry out relief measures. Care must be taken to ensure that there would be no loss of life and property due to floods. Rescue and NDRF teams have to be stationed at strategic locations.

Ajay Kumar wanted all the flood relief officials and mandal officials to stay put at their working places as there was a forecast of heavy rains in the days to come. Situation at overflowing streams and tanks in erstwhile Khammam district should be monitored.

District Collector Anudeep Durishetty held a review meeting with the officials at Bhadrachalam sub-Collector’s office. He told people living on the banks of Godavari to be alert in view of the increasing water level in the river.

He said that control rooms have been set up at the collectorate with emergency dialing number 08744-241950 and at Bhadrachalam sub collector’s office with a dialing number 08743-232444. People could call the control rooms for emergency services.

Superintendent of Police Dr. Vineeth G also told the public to be alert as the streams and rivulets were overflowing. He cautioned the public against touching electric poles and farmers to be cautious while operating irrigation pumps. In case of emergency people should dial 100 for assistance, he said.

During the past 24-hours 13 mandals in Kothagudem district received light to rather heavy rainfall while there was no rainfall in four mandals. A rainfall of 4.5 cm was recorded in Dummugudem mandal, 3.9 cm in Gundala, Cherla, Aswapuram and Manugur recorded a rainfall of above 2 cm.

In Khammam though the weather remained cloudy there was no rainfall in 19 mandals and two mandals, Khammam Rural and Tirumalayapalem received very light rain. Coal production in SCCL opencast mines in Kothagudem, Yellandu, Manugur and Sathupalli was yet to resume due to inundation in the mines.