Amaravathi sources stated that following heavy rains, River krishna is in spate again and the upper catchment areas in Maharashtra and Karnataka have reached maximum capacity. Meanwhile following this the crest gates of major dams that were already full to the brim in Andhra Pradesh were opened to let the flood waters out. Perhaps this is for the third time that crest gates were opened in the past three months as the State experiences heavy rainfall and floodwaters had to be let out into the Bay of Bengal.
Earlier on Saturday, the Srisailam reservoir received an inflow of 2.73 lakh cusecs from upstream and 3.20 lakh cusecs was discharged downstream, maintaining a flood cushion of about 1.31 tmc ft and the 2.91 lakh cusecs that flowed into Nagarjuna Sagar has been let out downstream into the Dr K L Rao Sagar where the outflow was 2.78 lakh cusecs.
Moreover the Prakasam Barrage in Vijayawada recorded an inflow of 2.58 lakh cusecs and an outflow of 2.23 lakh cusecs, according to the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA).According to the SDMA, the flood trend was rising though there was no threat of submergence this time and the heavy rainfall and flash floods which affected Rayalaseema in the past week caused extensive damage to agricultural crops and infrastructure, including roads, in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh with the Collector G Veerapandian putting the preliminary loss estimate at Rs 784 crore.
