CHENNAI: Amidst heavy downpour, the Water Resources Department discharged 1,000 cusecs of surplus water from Chembarambakkam Lake every half hour, as the lake reached maximum storage level on Monday. Residents in low-lying areas were alerted and rescue teams were taking steps to rescue them.
At 4 am, the lake stood at 21.01 feet against its full capacity of 24 feet, while the inflow was 6,881 cusecs. At 5 pm, the water level rose to 22.41 feet, while the storage was 3.228 tmcft against 3.650 tmcft. The WRD increased the release of surplus water from 6,000 cusecs to 8,000 cusecs at 5 pm, and later resorted to the phased discharge as inflow was 1,2000 cusecs.
A senior WRD official told TNIE, “Around 11.30 am, the inflow was 10,000 cusecs. We increased the surplus release from 3,000 to 6,000 cusecs at 12.30 pm. As the inflow was rising by 10,000 cusecs and the water level at 21.77 ft, we discharged 500 cusecs every half an hour and increased it to 1,000 cusecs.”
Similarly, 17,000 cusecs was discharged from the Poondi reservoir as the inflow from the catchment was around 6,000 cusecs.