Rains in Mah to bring more floods to AP

Hyderabad, Aug 10 (UNI) The flood situation in Andhra Pradesh continued to be grim today in the wake of heavy discharge of flood water into river Godavari and Krishna by Maharashtra and Karnataka, official said.

Anticipating more floods from the upper riparian states, a flood alert was sounded to people living on the banks of river Krishna in Krishna and Guntur districts as 3.90 lakh cusecs of water was discharged from the Nagarjunasagar reservoir, Disaster Management Commissioner Debabratha Kanta told UNI.

The river Godavari continued to flow 1.2 ft above the third danger mark of 52 ft at the temple town of Bhadrachalam today.

A huge 7.54 lakh cusecs of water was discharged from the Dowleswaram Barrage downstream with no signs of water receding from several hundred marooned villages in Khammam as also in East and West Godavari districts.

Meanwhile, weatherman predicted more rains in Mahrashtra under the influence of low pressure area over northwest Madhya Pradesh and offshore trough at sea level running from north Konkan coast to south Karnataka coast.

''The situation is likely to ease out after three or four days,'' Mr Kanta said, adding that with fresh floods from Maharashtra, 2.82 lakh cusecs of water was released at the Sriramsagar project across the river Godavari.

As much as 3.92 lakh cusecs was discharged from Jurala, the entry point of the river Krishna in Andhra Pradesh and 3.89 lakh cusecs from Srisailam, the lifeline of the state.

The irrigation department officials built up 14.31 tmc (thousand million cusecs) storage in Somasila and 26.79 tmc in Kandaleru in keeping with the Andhra Pradesh Government's commitment to supply 1000 cusecs of water to Chennai city from August 15, as over 10,000 cusecs was diverted to these reservoirs from the Potireddypadu Head Regulator.

There was not much improvement in the situation in Adilabad district, where rivers Penganga and Pranhita were in spate in the wake of heavy inflows from Maharashtra.

UPA chairperson and Congress President Sonia Gandhi along with Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil made an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas of the state yesterday.

UNI SM SS DS1330