Vijayawada: 3L cusecs of Krishna water released into sea

Vijayawada: Around three lakh cusecs of water is being released into the sea from Prakasam barrage lifting all the 70 gates on Wednesday. The Krishna district officials have made all the arrangements to release the water without giving chance to any untoward incidents.

On the occasion, Krishna district collector Md Imtiaz said that more than 3 lakh cusecs of floodwater was released from Prakasam barrage and officials were asked to alert the people of low lying areas along the river course. The collector visited Prakasam barrage along with the officials of the water resources department on Wednesday.

Speaking on the occasion, Imtiaz said that about 5 lakh cusecs of floodwater was released from the upstream reservoirs. He instructed the officials to take measures to shift people of low-lying villages to safer places and shelters.

The collector also said that the 70 gates of Prakasam barrage were lifted to a height of six feet releasing 2.87 lakh cusecs while the 3 lakh cusecs will be released additionally on Wednesday night. Seventeen tahsildars of low-lying mandals were alerted to take precautionary measures, he said and added that the situation return to normalcy in the next two days. Water resources department division executive engineer Swarup Kumar and other officers were present.

Meanwhile, all the upstream projects Pulichintala, Nagarjunasagar, Srisailam, Jurala, Narayanapur and Almatti are still receiving nearly 2.5 lakh cusecs of inflows on average. The same quantity of water is being released downstream as per the inflows. All the reservoirs are already full of water and the inflows will be released into sea through Prakasam barrage. The flood may continue in the next two days, said officials.