The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : State saw worst-ever floods in 2009

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 02, 2010
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

State saw worst-ever floods in 2009

K. Venkateshwarlu

Government's grandiose flood-prevention measures remain a non-starter
Complaints over tardy relief and rehabilitation continue to pour in

- File Photo

Nature's fury:Flood water that entered residential areas in Kurnool city.

HYDERABAD: Dubbed as mother of all floods in Krishna basin almost once in 10,000 year phenomenon, it left many parts of the State ravaged around this time last year, leaving several dead and rendering lakhs of people homeless.

Kurnool city was submerged in ten feet deep water for three long days, a worst ever nightmare for lakhs of its denizens. The flow in the Krishna was heavy and the threat of devastation so grim that Chief Minister K. Rosaiah spent the entire night on October 2 in his office in the Secretariat personally monitoring the flood situation.

Flood fury

Unprecedented inflows of 20 lakh cusecs, twice the designed capacity, slammed and overshot Srisailam dam by 11.5 feet for the first time in history testing the strength of the structure. Similar was the case with Prakasam barrage, where the inflows surpassed the record of 1903. The flood fury did not spare the temple towns of Mantralayam and Alampur or the tiny weavers village of Rajoli either.

A year after the devastation that lasted for a week from September end to October 5 left deep scars on the people who survived it nothing much seemed to have changed at the ground level.

The government's grandiose flood-prevention measures mostly remain a non-starter while complaints over tardy relief and rehabilitation, particularly construction of houses for the victims, continue to pour in.

‘Water release delayed'

The debate over cause of flooding has not died down. While the government holds on to the view that excessive rainfall in the catchment areas upstream of Srisailam dam as the major cause, irrigation experts attribute it to mismanagement.

Release of water from the dam was delayed deliberately to ensure water in some of the favoured irrigation projects resulting in unprecedented water backing up behind the dam triggering floods both upstream and downstream even when all gates were opened.

Tungabhadra and Handri rivers rose menacingly plunging Kurnool and Mantralayam into ten feet of water. There was this charge that the Kurnool district administration gave a damn to the professional advice complied after a through study of rainfall data that Tungabhadra river would receive unprecedented floods.

The Central Water Commission had forecast that the impending flood would break the previous record of 1992 but the response was lukewarm. Having passed through the misery, did we learn any lesson ?

Are we in a position to effectively check such floods and take rescue, relief and rehabilitation operations on war - footing? Not many vouch for government's claims.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh

News Update

Stories in this Section