Odisha braces for a medium flood in Mahanadi system, rushes ODRAF/NDRF teams, death toll mounts to 6

Anticipating flooding of the Mahanadi river system due to extremely heavy rainfall in upper catchment areas, Odisha government Wednesday rushed NDRF and ODRF teams to vulnerable districts.It also opened more sluice gates of the Hirakud reservoir to discharge excess water from the dam.Keeping in view possible floods and inundation, the government has deployed seven teams of NDRF and ODRAF in Balasore, Bhadrak and Kendrapara districts.


PTI | Bhubaneswar | Updated: 15-09-2021 23:18 IST | Created: 15-09-2021 23:10 IST
Odisha braces for a medium flood in Mahanadi system, rushes ODRAF/NDRF teams,  death toll mounts to 6
Representative image Image Credit: ANI
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Anticipating flooding of the Mahanadi river system due to extremely heavy rainfall in upper catchment areas, Odisha government Wednesday rushed NDRF and ODRF teams to vulnerable districts.

It also opened more sluice gates of the Hirakud reservoir to discharge excess water from the dam.

Keeping in view possible floods and inundation, the government has deployed seven teams of NDRF and ODRAF in Balasore, Bhadrak and Kendrapara districts. While Balasore and Bhadrak got one NDRF team, two each ODRAF teams was deployed in Balasore and Kendrapara districts. One NDRF and one ODRAF team was deployed in Bhadrak district, a senior official said.

Meanwhile, rain related death toll in Odisha has mounted to six after one new casualty was reported from both Kendrapara and Subarnapur districts. So far three persons died in Kendrapara district and one each in Ganjam and Subarnapur due to wall collapse while one man drowned in Khurda district.

“This apart, officials in the Special Relief Commissioner’s (SRC) office said two more persons were missing, one due to floods in Nischintakoili Block of Cuttack district and another may have been swept away in Laxmi jore Nallah of Puintala Block of Bolangir district,” the official said.

SRC P K Jena said the government expected a low to medium flood in the Mahanadi river system as the upper catchment areas in Chhattisgarh received heavy rainfall due to the depression which crossed Odisha on Tuesday.

Jena said at least 18 sluice gates have been opened to release additional water from Hirakud. He said while 3.19 lakh cusec water is entering into the dam every second, an equal volume of water is now (6 PM of Wednesday) being discharged. The volume of water discharge may increase in order to maintain 628 feet water level at the reservoir.

“If required more gates will be opened according to the Rule Curve to maintain the dam,” he said as it has been decided to maintain water level at Hiradud reservoir at 628 feet against its full reservoir capacity of 630 feet.

In the Mahanadi river system, 4.72 lakh cusec of water was flowing at Khairmal while its volume was 5.34 lakh cusec at Barmul and 6.43 lakh cusec at Mundali near Cuttack, officials in the Water resources department said.

The water resources department and district authorities in the downstream areas of Mahanadi have been kept on full alert. ''We expect a low to medium flood to pass through Mahanadi at Mundali near Cuttack. About 7 lakh cusec of flood water is expected to flow through Mundali barrage,” Jena said.

The district administrations are taking measures to ensure that the flood does not cause much damage in the delta area. Men and machineries are being kept in readiness to manage the situation. Engineers of the water resources department are keeping a close watch on the vulnerable river embankments so that there is no breach in them when the medium sized flood passes through the Mahanadi river.

“The volume of water discharge near Mundali is likely to increase to 7 lakh cusec in the next 36 hours after the fresh water being discharged through additional six gates reach here,” D K Samal, the engineer-in-chief of the water resources department said.

Two rivers- Jalaka at Mathani and Baitarani near Akhuapada are flowing above their danger levels, he said.

Sources in the water resources department said that a total seven rivers are in spate in the state due to the incessant rains on Monday and Tuesday. The water level of Mahanadi is increasing at Naraj and Devi river is swelling near Alipingala, Ib is in spate at Sundargarh and the water level of Brahmani is rising at Jenapur and Panposh.

The Subarnarekha river is swelling near Rajghat and Jamsolaghat, while Budhabalanga is in the spate near national highway number 5. The Vansadhara river is also swelling near Kashinagar, they said Jena said three breaches have been reported in embankments of Brahmani river in Jajpur district and some agricultural land has been flooded in Khurda district.

A report from Mayurbhanj district said that over 1500 people of Dangasahi village in Thakurmunda block are marooned as the bamboo bridge over Salandi river which connects the village has been washed away after the heavy rain.

A bridge at Binika on Mahuda-Bahupali road was submerged leading to communication disruption in the area. The flood water is currently flowing 5 ft over the bridge.

The state’s deficient rainfall ratio between June 1 and August 31, which was minus 30.3 per cent, on September 15 stood at minus 8.8 per cent due to the depression induced heavy rainfall, an official said.

The state government has received reports of water logging in several areas due to the devastating rain. “Though there is no flood in the rivers, all water bodies in in the state are filled with rainwater and this is causing havoc. More than two dozen villages across the state remained marooned, including 20 in Koraput district alone,'' the SRC said.

The heavy rain has hit over 23.82 lakh people in 24 districts and left at least six people dead and two other missing, Jena said adding that as per preliminary reports 7,540 houses have been damaged and about 1.30 lakh hectares of agricultural land are submerged in the rain water. As many as 20,552 people were evacuated from low-laying areas during the rains on Monday and Tuesday, he said.

The district administrations have been instructed to submit damage assessment report by September 22, following which the affected people could be given assistance, he said. Sources in the SRC office said that the state during last 24 hours recorded an average of 17.1 mm rainfall. Sundergarh received the highest rainfall of 62.6 mm, followed by 48.9 mm at Jharsuguda, 40.9 mm at Jagastsinghpur, 33.7 mm at Deogarh,32.3 mm at Bargarh and 30.1 mm at Balasore.

Other districts received less than 30 mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours, it said.

While five blocks have received rainfall above 100 mm, 23 blocks got rainfall within 50 mm to 100 mm.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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