Kaddam engineers overcome ‘life-threatening’ flood scare

The 36-hour period from 10 pm on July 12 to 10 am on July 14 was the most challenging and to some extent scary one for engineers and other support staff of Kaddam Narayana Reddy project in Nirmal district as it made them witness and manage highest flood of their career to date.

Yet, they mustered courage and encouraged one another to stay put at the dam site to manage the overwhelming flood, while the revenue authorities were advised to vacate people from about 20 villages along the course of river Kaddam, downstream of the dam. Visit of Endowments Minister A. Indrakaran Reddy, MLA A. Rekha Naik, District Collector Musharraf Faruqui and others to the dam site when the level was on the rise also boosted their morale and spirit.

“We have witnessed some heavy floods in the past but the difference at Kaddam this time was that the inflow was over 2 lakh cusecs higher than the gross discharge capacity of the dam. Rise in the water level of the project in spite of capacity discharge of over 3 lakh cusecs as the inflow was in the range of over 5.19 lakh cusecs”, Superintending Engineer Susheel Kumar Deshpande told The Hindu over phone, when contacted.

The full reservoir level (FRL) of the project is 700 feet with the top (brim) of the dam at 714.3 ft. On Wednesday, the water level went beyond 700 ft as flood discharge was restricted to a little over 3 lakh cusecs with one of the 18 crest gates not operated due to some mechanical snag. It is stated that the dam authorities also explored the possibilities to breach the earthen dam to let out excess flood but no suitable breach point was found.

“With extremely heavy rainfall recorded in several catchment areas the previous day we were expecting a heavy flood but what was realised was beyond the forecast. We were a little worried when the water level went up by over 1.5 ft in a couple of hours on Tuesday night, but we mustered courage when it was on decline between 4 am and 7 am on Wednesday. But, it started going up again”, Mr. Deshpande said explaining the events which he said were scary on occasion.

At noon on Thursday, water level in Kaddam was 686.28 ft with the inflow falling below 2 lakh cusecs.