As extremely heavy rain continued to batter most parts of Telangana’s eastern and northern districts, Laxmidevipetta in Mulugu district recorded a whopping 649.8 mm of rainfall as of 8 am Thursday, the highest ever 24-hour rainfall recorded in the state since 2004. Chityal in the neighbouring Jayashankar Bhupalpally district also recorded 616.5 mm of rainfall during the same period.
Over the last 24 hours, several parts of Telangana have continued to receive heavy to very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall (64.6mm to over 204.4mm) as predicted but the rain fury reached unprecedented levels in some areas with at least two dozen locations recording over 200mm of rainfall.On Thursday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a red alert (heavy to very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall) for Khammam, Nalgonda, Suryapet, Vikarabad, Sangareddy, Medak and Kamareddy districts. Heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely in Nirmal, Nizamabad, Bhadradri Kothagudem, Mahabubabad, Siddipet, Yadadri Bhuvanagiri, Rangareddy, Medchal Malkajgiri and Hyderabad districts till Friday morning.
Given the situation, authorities said that the Kadem Project in north Telangana’s Nirmal district is receiving an inflow of 6.04 lakh cusecs as against its capacity of over 3.5 lakh cusecs.Meanwhile, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao instructed Education Minister Sabita Indra Reddy to declare a holiday for all educational institutions on Friday.
In the eastern Telangana temple town of Bhadrachalam, the Godavari river has been flowing dangerously. According to Bhadradri Kothagudem District Collector Priyanka Ala, the water level has breached the second-level warning of 48 feet and touched 50.50 feet by 9 am Thursday. At the time, the downstream discharge here is at 12.86 lakh cusecs and a third-level warning may be sounded soon if water levels breach the 53 ft mark.
