New Delhi, June 27
Flash floods in Parechu river has exposed the flaws in the disaster management system prevalent along the river course and the Himachal Pradesh Government is only thanking its stars as the damage would have been collossal had the flooding taken place during night.
In a confidential report to the state government the district administration has stated that had the flood water came during night it would have been much more difficult to manage the situation as was done on Sunday.
The district authorities have urged the state government to provide proper equipment with the administration to manage such operation during night. A copy of the report available with The Tribune said the warning system along Sutlej needs to be strengthened by providing electronic sensors to detect water level and by linking these with much more extensive wireless and telecommunication system.
It said all vulnerable habitations must have an intranet or wide area network/local area network.
In a significant observation the report said the embankments along Sutlej need to be strengthened at vulnerable places, particularly along those stretches where the national highway runs along the river at lower elevation.
The height of bridges on the river should be so raised as to make them less vulnerable at the time of flood.
Flash floods washed away two bridges in Rampur area, one suspension bridge linking Ramur in Shimla with Jagatkhana in Kullu and an old bridge a Vazir Bauri, national highway at Nogli were damaged. The ropeway was also washed away near Jhakri.
The discharge of water in the river, which rose to 5,000 cusecs yesterday due to flash floods in its tributary Parechu originating in Tibet, was reduced to 2,000 cusecs at Nathpa dam site and there were no reports of rise in its level upstream, reports said.
The 1500 MW Nathpa-Jhakri hydropower project, which was closed on Saturday due to heavy silting, remained closed for the third day today and there were no hopes of early resumption of power generation as the silt content continued to be as high as 30,000 PPM (Particle per million) against maximum permissible limit of 5000, it added.
