Pakistan: Chashma, Guddu to experience medium floods

By Khaleeq Kiani

ISLAMABAD, July 17: The flows in all the four major rivers have started receding but medium floods would be witnessed at Chashma and Guddu barrages in the next couple of days.

An official of the Federal Flood Commission told Dawn on Sunday that flows in Indus, Jhelum, Chenab and Kabul had started declining after weeks of high flows. The fall in river flows is because of a reduction in temperatures in the Northern Areas.

However, the discharges from Mangla dam have been increased, even more than the inflows, in anticipation of another round of floods in the river Jhelum owing to monsoon rains in the catchment areas.

He said outflows from Mangla dam had been increased to about 95,000 cusecs against inflows of about 87,000 cusecs, so that an additional capacity was created to store higher flows in the future to minimize the impact of floods. Otherwise, he added, the water level at Mangla at 1196 feet was about 16 feet below the maximum limit.

At present, a medium level flood is being witnessed at Chashma barrage where discharges on Saturday night stood at 517,051 cusecs against an inflow of 521,000 cusecs.

River flows in Indus at Tarbela stood at 364,000 cusecs against outflows of 317,900 cusecs. The water level in Tarbela dam was recorded at 1530.34 feet on Saturday night against its maximum storage level of 1550 feet.

In the next two to three days, the federal flood commission is expecting medium-to-high flood as flows are likely to go up to 550,000 cusecs, owing to higher releases from Chashma barrage and Mangla dam. On Saturday, flows at Guddu were recorded at about 334,217 cusecs and 468,000 cusecs at Taunsa barrage.

The official said the flows in the river Kabul had shrunk to 148,000 cusecs on Sunday morning from 163,000 cusecs.

Flows in Chenab at Marla have been recorded at 96,700 cusecs, of which 65,400 cusecs is being discharged. A total of about 706,600 cusecs of water was flowing at the rim station, he said.