NOVEL ATTRACTION: Water gushing out of the Chembarambakkam lake in the south western fringes of Chennai on Tuesday afternoon drew a big crowd of people. — Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI: It was a visual feast for villagers who visited Chembarambakkam Lake on Tuesday to watch water being released from the lake for the first time in seven years.

The sluice gates at Chembarambakkam were opened around noon with the water level almost reaching the optimum storage of 22 feet, thanks to heavy inflow following seven cm of rainfall in the catchment areas.

Public Works Department officials said 500 cubic feet per second (cusecs) of water had to be released to prevent breeching.

The lake received an inflow of about 1,700 cusecs — excess flow from Sriperumbudur tank, Nemam tank and Korattur Anaicut — on Tuesday.

As the water came gushing out of the massive tank (capacity of 3,645 million cubic ft), people from about 10 villages, including Mangadu, Kallithupettai and Sirukalathur, came to see the lake. Families travelled in tractors while several people, including aged women, trudged along the two-km long slushy path to watch the release of water.

The place soon turned into a tourist spot and several petty shops mushroomed near the lake doing brisk business.

A PWD official said the lake had a storage of 2,855 million cubic feet as against its total capacity of 3,645 mcft. Water was released from the lake when the level reached 21 feet as a safety measure.

The water release would be regulated according to the inflow in the coming days. The surplus water let out from the lake would flow to Adyar river via Tiruneermalai, Anakaputhur and Nandambakkam, he said.

Reports of flood alert being issued to the villages downstream such as Vazhuvankadu were denied by PWD officials, who said there was no such need for evacuation at present.

Tiruvallur Collector Pankaj Kumar Bansal said half the lake area came under the Tiruvallur jurisdiction. But villages in Tiruvallur district would not be affected.

Even those in Kancheepuram district such as Tirumudivakkam and Kunrathur would not be affected as they were away from the surplus channel, he added.

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