Maha: Dam water release causes flooding in Beed villages, neighbouring districts on alert

Heavy rainfall in catchment areas of the Manjara dam forced authorities to open all 18 gates of the reservoir to discharge water on Tuesday, which led to flooding in some villages of Maharashtras Beed district while an alert was sounded in some neighbouring districts, officials said.Several families from the affected villages were shifted to safer places, they said, adding that so far there was no report of any casualty.

Heavy rainfall in catchment areas of the Manjara dam forced authorities to open all 18 gates of the reservoir to discharge water on Tuesday, which led to flooding in some villages of Maharashtra's Beed district while an alert was sounded in some neighbouring districts, officials said.

Several families from the affected villages were shifted to safer places, they said, adding that so far there was no report of any casualty. After heavy rains on Monday night, the Manjara and Majalgaon dams in Beed were filled up to their maximum capacity.

The local administration opened all 18 gates of the Manjara dam and 11 gates of the Majalgaon dam early Tuesday morning, resulting in discharge of 78,397 cusec 80,534 cusec water from them, respectively, officials said. The discharge of water from the Manjara dam led to flooding in villages under Kaij and Ambajogai talukas of Beed district, Ambajogai tehsildar Vipin Patil told PTI. ''Villages like Isthal (in Kaij taluka), Apegaon, Tadola, Kopra, Anjanpur, Deora, Tat Borgaon, Akola (all in Ambajogai taluka), located on the Manjara river banks, were facing flooding and water-logging. Nearly 110 families from some of these flood-affected areas were shifted to safer places,'' the official said. The Majalgaon irrigation department's office has also written to Beed, Parbhani and Nanded collectors to sound an alert in villages located along the Sindphana and Godavari rivers in their respective areas. Beed district disaster management authority official Umesh Shirke said, ''The next 24 hours are crucial. No casualty has been reported so far.'' The district administration is on alert, Beed Collector Radhabinod Sharma said, adding that people were being shifted to safer places. Isthal village resident Pandhari Tokle said the water began to rise in their area on Monday night. ''The water rose up to nearly three feet. Residents started shifting to safer places from 4 am on Tuesday. There is no person or animal left in the village now. The situation is more or less the same in the nearby Anjanpur and Apegaon villages in Ambajogai taluka,'' he said.

When contacted, Prithviraj B P, the collector of neighbouring Latur district, said 158 villages in his district could be affected by the discharge of water from the Manjara dam. ''We are closely monitoring the situation in villages located where the course of the Manjara river changes and the site where the Terna and Manajra rivers meet,'' he said.