New Delhi: The Yamuna continued to flow above the danger mark on Friday, the fourth day in a row, recording a level of 207.31m at 8am before receding slightly to 207.05m by 5pm. This displacement has affected 12,000-15,000 people as well as livestock, said officials.The Central Water Commission expects the level to fall below the 207m mark Saturday, reaching 206.4m at the Old Railway Bridge. However, this would still be well above the danger mark of 205.33m.
On Friday, for the first time since Sept 1, the discharge at Hathnikund barrage dropped below one lakh cusecs, registering 72,000 cusecs at 2pm and further decreasing to 55,655 cusecs by 7pm. This raised hopes that river levels in Delhi may soon fall below the evacuation mark of 206m. India Meteorological Department also expects the rains to pacify upstream in the Himalayan regions of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.“Over the next three days, the core rain will be concentrated over Gujarat and southern Rajasthan. Until Sept 7, areas of Uttarakhand and parts of Delhi will receive only light to very light rain. Thereafter, the monsoon trough will move southwards. A yellow alert has been issued from Sept 8 for Uttarakhand and parts of Haryana. However, the rain will be heavy in isolated places, not of high intensity or very heavy,” said Krishna Mishra, senior scientist, IMD.According to Mahesh Palawat from Skymet, the rain in the upstream catchment area of the Yamuna has dropped drastically and will be very low for the next few days. The forecast also reflects in the discharge from Hathnikund barrage, about 200km from Delhi, from where the heavy water discharge due to extreme rain upstream impacts the city in about 36 hours.District magistrate (East) Amol Srivastava, the nodal officer for the flood situation, said while it’s difficult to predict when the situation would improve, it may begin normalising soon once the river level nears the evacuation mark of 206m.“The water level is expected to return to 206.4m Saturday morning. We are busy keeping the relief camps running and rescue work ongoing. There are at least seven locations each in six districts where the camps were set up,” said Srivastava.On Thursday, Yamuna levels reached their peak of 207.48m in the morning, marginally behind the second-highest level ever of 207.49m recorded in Sept 1978. Thereafter, the levels began dropping slowly. However, the river continues to flow well above the dangerous level, impacting areas like Civil Lines, Kashmere Gate and Majnu Ka Tila.
