Hirakud Dam Authorities Close 8 Sluice Gates To Control Flood Situation

Bhubaneswar: In a bid to avoid a major flood in the Mahanadi river, the Odisha government closed eight gates of the Hirakud Dam reservoir on Monday.

In view of this, a severe-scale flood is anticipated. In order to moderate it, the State administration has decided to close eight gates of the Hirakud dam immediately.

Special Relief Commissioner and Additional Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena informed that in the last 24 hours the highest amount of rainfall has been recorded in three river basins Indravati, Tel, and Mahanadi. Similarly, heavy to very heavy rainfall has also occurred in the upper catchment areas of Mahanadi.

As a result, the inflow to Hirakud is expected to increase from 7 lakh cusec to 8.5 lakh cusec. The engineers of the Water Resources Department have also analysed that the inflow is likely to further increase to 9 lakh cusec.

Efforts are being made to control the outflow at Mundali to be around 11 lakh cusec on Tuesday evening. If the Hirakud dam is not closed it may reach 12.5 lakh cusec, said Jena.

Additional five teams of ODRAF, seven teams of NDRF, and 20 teams of Odisha Fire Services are being mobilised to the vulnerable areas.

Earlier, 7 teams of ODRAF, 3 of the NDRF, and 12 teams of Odisha Fire Services had been mobilised for Puri, Kendrapara, Khurda, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, and Nayagarh. The additional teams are being mobilised for these districts and for the districts of Boudh, Angul, and Sonepur.