11 more gates of Hirakud dam opened

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Sambalpur, Aug 3:

Authorities of the Hirakud Dam in Odisha’s Sambalpur district today opened 11 gates to release floodwater taking the total number of gates opened for releasing floodwater to 12.

The Dam authorities have claimed that keeping in view rains in the upper catchment resulting in increased inflow into the dam they were forced to open five more gates.

“Now at noon the water level in Hirakud reservoir stands at 608.12 feet. In the last 24 hours the upper catchment region of the dam has on an average received 51.14mm rains. River Mahanadi’s tributary Ib river in its catchment area has received between 160mm to 200mm rainfall on an average in the last 24 hours. So we have opened nine gates taking the total number of gates opened to 10,” said Rabindra Panda, superintending engineer of Hirakud Dam.

The Dam authorities had earlier opened one gate of the Dam.

Commenting on the possibility of the dam authorities opening more gates he said, “Presently, our men are busy calculating data as to how much floodwater will be entering into the reservoir and on the basis of the calculations we will take a call on opening of more gates. You see rains are still continuing in the upper catchments.”

While 1.47 lakh cubic feet of water per second are being released from the 10 gates, the dam was receiving 2.40 lakh cubic feet of water per second.

Meanwhile, authorities of the Rengali Dam in Augul district have opened one more gate of the dam in the evening due to heavy rains in upper catchments of Brahmani river.