Vijayawada: For the first time in the month of July in 18 years, 26 crest gates of Nagarjuna Sagar dam across the Krishna river were lifted on Tuesday to release water downstream.

The water from the dam is usually released in August. However, huge inflows from the Srisailam dam following heavy rain in upstream Maharashtra and Karnataka have almost filled the reservoir early this year.

Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir is getting 2.28 lakh cusecs of flood water inflows on Tuesday and water levels reached to 587 feet by evening, against the full reservoir level of 590 ft. The storage capacity of reservoir is 312.05 tmc ft and the reservoir got 305.62 tmc ft water by Tuesday.

The water resources department is releasing 1.18 lakh cusecs of water by lifting 26 gates from Nagarjuna Sagar and these flood waters will reach the Pulichintala reservoir very soon. Major reservoirs in Krishna basin are getting huge inflows of flood water due to heavy rains in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Almatti in Karnataka is getting 1.26 lakh cusecs and Tungabhadra dam in AP-Karnataka border is receiving 1.27 lakh cusecs of water on Tuesday. Krishna river is in spate and most of the inflows are released from the reservoirs.

Pulichintala, the last reservoir in Krishna river basin, has the water storage capacity of 45.77 tmc ft. With the outflows from Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir, Pulichintala will reach its full reservoir level very soon. So far, Pulichintala received 30 tmf ft water due to heavy rains in the upland areas and the reservoir will reach full capacity shortly.

Major reservoirs in Andhra Pradesh have total storage capacity of 865 tmc ft. Till Tuesday, these reservoirs have received 77 per cent of their capacity with 668.18 tmc ft water. Medium level reservoirs have capacity of 137 tmc ft. By Tuesday evening, these medium level reservoirs have 66.66 tmc ft water.

Following huge inflows from upstream projects, authorities opened crest gates of the Srisailam dam.

The crest gates were opened to a height of 10 feet to release the water downstream to Nagarjuna Sagar.

According to officials, the water level in Srisailam on Tuesday morning was 883 feet against the full reservoir level of 885 feet. The water storage was 204.78 TMC ft against its full capacity of 215.80 tmc ft.

As many as 2,29,743 cusecs of water are flowing into Srisailam from Jurala and Sunkesula projects, while outflow is 2,48,900 cusecs.