As no rains were reported since fortnight, the Himayat sagar remain calm with storage level in the lake standing at the full tank capacity of 1763.50 feet while the flood gates, that were opened after several years, too were closed completely bringing a complete silence after the storm.
While the area of water spread stands at 7.6 kilometers to storage level, the catchment area covers almost 505.00 square miles (1307.95 Sq.Km) of radius encompassing the area 51 kilometer around the Qutub Shahi Lake.
Constructed during the year 1920 to 1927 AD, the Qutub Shahi reservoir was primarily designed to supply fresh water to the people of Hyderabad and to protect the city from floods. The reservoir since, has been serving as a primary source of drinking water apart from Osmansagar to quench the thirst of the people of historic city.
The present storage level remain standing on a point where it was started creating panic last month putting the officials on their toe to get ready the crest gates for releasing the water into Musi river.
It was on the intervening night of 13th October when the bunds of several water bodies were developed breaches causing flood that ravaged what comes in its way and swamp almost half of the city in a first ever deluge after several decades recalling the memories of the great Musi flood of 1908.
The mayhem said to have been caused due the divergence of inflows meant to flow directly into the gigantic water bodies called Himayat sagar and Osmansagar.
According to experts the inflows coming from catchment areas like Moinabad, Shadnagar, Amdapur and Nagarguda etc were diverted due to the blockade caused by the overwhelming encroachments and constructions on the water way. The inflows that comes from upward areas largely takes a diversion and filled the water bodies completely on the right side of the natural course such as Bramna Cheruvu, Brahmna Kunta, Appa Cheruvu, Palle Cheruvu and Gurrum Cheruvu instead of reaching to left side where the Himayathsagar and Osmansagar is located.
“The water bodies, flowing on the left side of Himayat sagar are considered very small in size and naturally feed only to Mir Alam Lake on downward direction which is the third largest water body after Himayathsagar and Osmansagar on the course of Musi River. The heavy inflows coming down from upward direction take a diverse route has filled the small water bodies completely that finally starts developing breaches one after another unable to withstand the heavy flows and this has cause floods into areas in downward direction,” says the experts.
