Yamuna flowing above danger mark, not to worry: Dikshit

NEW DELHI - The Yamuna continued to swell Friday, flowing a metre above the danger mark of 204.83 Friday evening. However, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit maintained that the situation was “under control” and people living in low-lying areas had been shifted to safer places.

The Delhi government claimed there was no reason to worry as “all mechanisms have been put in place to deal with the situation” following the release upstream of a huge volume of water into the river by Haryana.

According to an official of the Irrigation and Flood Control department, the water level in the Yamuna was recorded at 205.88 metre at 3 p.m. Friday, while it was 205.81 an hour earlier.

The official told IANS that the water level will continue to rise for the next few hours and is expected to reach 206.35 metres at 4 a.m. Saturday. He added that a similar situation had arisen last month too due to release of water by Haryana and the Yamuna had swollen to 205.97 metres.

Chief Minister Dikshit told reporters that the “situation is under control” and there was “no reason for people to worry and panic”.

She said people living in low-lying areas have been evacuated and shifted to camps put up by the Delhi government. “We are providing them all facilities, including food, in the camps,” she said on the sidelines of a function.

“The situation is under control, don’t worry. The huge amount of water which was to reach Delhi from Haryana has fortunately not reached Delhi. I, along with Flood Control Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan, am monitoring the situation,” she added.

In the meantime, Minister Raj Kumar inspected the low-lying areas near the river. He had held a high-level meeting on Thursday to review the situation.

Areas that had been flooded in 1978 included low-lying colonies like Batla House, Garhi Mandu, Yamuna Bazaar, Nigambodh Ghat, Shastri Park, Madanpur Khadar, ITO, Rajghat, Daryaganj, Model Town and Mukherjee Nagar as well as settlements along the river bank.

However, government officials maintained that these areas were not under threat this time and the river embankments were higher than in 1978.

More than 600,000 cusecs of water was released upstream from the Hathni Kund Barrage in Haryana Wednesday, causing the Yamuna to rise four-five cm every hour.

Elaborating some of the emergency measures launched to tackle the situation, an official of the flood control department said that over 100 booster pumps had been fitted along the banks of the river to pump out the water. Orders had been issued for installing more pumps in low-lying areas such as Ring Road, Okhla, Majnu Ka Tila, Burari, Batla House and Jahangirpuri.

The official said around 75 boats had been kept on the riverside and 68 divers/boatmen and a team of the National Disaster Relief Force deployed to deal with the situation.

In the 1978 floods, the river had crossed 207.48 metres, affecting more than 250,000 people.