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As storm in Himayath Sagar is brewing, officials hold breath

With barely two feet of space left to complete the full tank level of Himayath Sagar, the flood gates of the lake would be lifted anytime soon as the officials are closely monitoring the situation with bated breath and have already pushed the panic button.

The present water level in the lake stands at 1760.9 feet against the full tank level of 1763.500 feet. This means only 2.6 feet of water is needed to complete the full tank level of the lake.

Since Saturday the Himayath Sagar Lake received a total of 6 feet of inflows pushing up the level further to 1760.9 feet today thereby brought the capacity to the verge of brimming.

However, going by the way the lake has responded in the past few years to a low volume of inflows, it has witnessed that a few minutes of rain or inflow holds no impact over the capacity. A gap of a single day is enough to take the water level down to a significant depth. This shows that the exhaustion ability of water in the lake is more efficacious than the holding capacity.

There is an element of plausibility in officials’ decision to postpone the opening of flood gates on 27th September after witnessing sharp increase in the water level on the night of 26th September. As the rains continued in the catchment areas last week, the water level was raised to 1754.90 feet keeping the officials on their toes. However, the officials deal with the situation meticulously and have waited the entire night of Saturday with bated breath before taking a final call. “As there were no further increased recorded in the water level by Sunday morning, the senior officials have decided to postpone the opening of the flood gates,” informed the official on the request of anonymity.

Fluctuation in water level was generally witnessed with the inflows from the catchments areas besides rains directly into the lake.

“Showers in the city will not make any impact over the storage capacity of Himayath Sagar. Rains only in areas such as Vicarabad, Tandur, Moinabad, Chevella, and some parts of Pargi would create inflows that directly moved towards the lake prompting the water level to swing up further,” the official informed.