Khanpur Dam’s spillways opened

HARIPUR: The Khanpur Dam’s administration opened the spillways of the reservoir on Saturday morning

to spill out the water as the reservoir was filled to the maximum conservation level, official sources said.

The spillway opening was properly announced a day earlier and water started releasing at around 9am that continued to discharge the water till 12 noon.

Official sources said that the reservoir had touched the maximum conservation level of 1982ft, necessitating the opening of spillways for the purpose of creating space for new inflows in the rain-fed Khanpur Dam.

During three hours of operating spillways, the administration discharged 1 ft of water which was equal to 6876 cusecs and brought down the level to 1981 ft.

The total outflow from the main canals for municipal and agriculture purposes was recorded as 136 cusecs while the inflow was 750 cusecs on Saturday afternoon, the sources added. The sources said that to avoid any emergency and harm to the populated areas downstream on the sides of Harro River, the Khanpur Dam authorities made announcements through local administration, loudspeakers and social media and ringing sirens about the opening of spillways so that they could take precautionary measures while crossing the river.

The tehsil administration also suspended every kind of vehicular traffic between Khanpur and Tarnawa for safety reasons.