Barely a month after the villages in Andhra Pradesh’s Godavari district were flooded by the Godavari river, a first-level flood warning has been issued for the Dowleswaram barrage in East Godavari district on Sunday.
At 12 pm on Sunday, the Andhra Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority (APSDMA) issued a second-level warning at the Bhadrachalam dam in Telangana, with the Godavari water levels at the dam reaching 48.09 ft. Water levels are continuing to rise in the Bhadrachalam, Kunavaram and Polavaram reservoirs. A first-level flood warning has also been issued at the Gotta barrage in the Vamsadhara river basin.
The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) has deployed 127 personnel in East Godavari. While two teams are located in Veeravaram, one team is in place in Chinturu.
As of 12 pm, the inflow and outflow at the Dowleswaram stood at 10,32,623 cusecs. A second level warning will be issued when the outflows cross 13 lakh cusecs.
Earlier in August, heavy rains in the catchment area of the Godavari basin had led to flash floods in East and West Godavari districts, resulting in water rising in the Dowleswaram barrage. The floods had reportedly affected nearly one lakh people in the East and West Godavari districts. According to officials, about 19,000 were evacuated from low-lying areas and shifted to relief camps.
A major political controversy followed after the floods over the construction of the Polavaram Irrigation Project in the state. The YSRCP government claimed that it was the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government’s move to construct a cofferdam and increase its height without completing work on the spillway, which led to the flooding. The TDP dismissed the allegations, claiming that the increase in height was done after approval from the Dam Design Review Committee (DDRC), the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA) and the Central Water Commission (CWC).