Medium Flood Likely in Mahanadi River System, Govt Prepared to Deal with Situation: SRC

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Government is fully prepared to deal with the medium flood-like situation in the Mahanadi river system caused by the incessant rain, informed the Special Relief Commissioner Pradeep Jena.

The SRC has reviewed the possible flood situation in the State with senior officers of DoWR, NDRF, ODRAF and Fire Services.

As rains continue in the upper catchment areas of Mahanadi, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted 76 mm rains in Chhattisgarh on Monday. Hence, more water will flow into Hirakud dam so, the water level will rise to 10.50 lakh cusec through the reservoir, the SRC said.

“We are expecting a medium flood of the range of the one which occurred during August in 2019. During that flood 10.34 lakh cusec water passed through the Hirakud reservoir. Districts to be affected by this flood are – Jagathsinghpur, Puri, Khurda, and Kendrapara. Some parts of Nayagarh and Cuttack districts are also likely to be affected,” he said.

The SRC has personally talked to all Collectors in Mahanadi areas and advised them to keep all field level officials and elected representatives in full alert to deal with eventual flood situation.

Seven teams of ODRAF, 3 teams of NDRF and 12 teams of Odisha Fire Services have been mobilized in Puri, Kendrapara, Khordha, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Nayagarh, he added.