Tarbela dam authorities open spillways to release water

HARIPUR: Tarbela dam authorities here on Friday afternoon opened the spillways to discharge the heavy flood system of 400,000 cusecs of water that entered the reservoir at around 2pm, sources said here on Friday.

“Tarbela dam’s reservoir is already filled to its maximum conservation level of 1,550 feet, leaving no space for accommodation of a single cusec of water,” said an official of Tarbela dam’s public relations office while talking to reporters.

Owing to torrential rain in the upper Hazara and Northern Areas of the country, the river Indus has witnessed a heavy flood and so has the Tarbela reservoir.

Official sources said that the situation changed suddenly at around 2pm when a heavy system of 400,000 cusecs entered the reservoir, due to which the dam authorities, with the direction of IRSA and its experts, have opened both auxiliary and service spillways so that the floodwater could be released into River Indus where a heavy flood was being witnessed.

Sources said that for the safety of the structure of the dam, the administration and IRSA decided to release the same quantity of water received to the reservoir as the dam was already filled on August 20.

Sources said that the emergency had been imposed at the dam and the panel of experts from Lahore Wapda House and IRSA had arrived

and started monitoring the situation.

According to the record of inflow and outflow of water in Tarbela, the reading recorded at 6am on Friday was 307,000 cusces of inflow while the outflow was 272,300 cusecs. However, the situation was changed at 2pm in the afternoon when a heavy system of 400,000 cusecs entered the reservoir.

The electricity generation recorded in the morning was 4,766 megawatts from 16 functional units, the sources said.