Yamuna flowing near warning level; Delhi agencies on alert

New Delhi: With the Yamuna flowing near the warning level, Delhi agencies are closely monitoring the situation to deal with any possible flooding, an official said on Saturday.

According to the official, at around 4 pm on Saturday, Yamuna’s water level reached 203.27 metres, slightly below the warning level of 204.5 metres.

The official said that at 10 am, over21,000 cusecs water was released from Hathani Kund Barrage in Haryana. Besides, around 17,000 cusecs water was also released from the barrage.

“We have been closely monitoring the water level of Yamuna. Preparation are being made to deal with flood-like situation,” the official said.

In July last year, traffic movement on Old Yamuna Bridge in Delhi had been closed for a few days after the water level breached the danger mark.

Last year, Yamuna’s water level had reached 205.5 metres.

Earlier in July, since the onset of monsoon, the Safdarjung Observatory, which provides official figures for the city, had recorded 25.4 mm of rainfall.

The observatory had received 0.4 mm of rains during 4 July to 5 July.

Overall, the weather station had gauged 26.8 mm of rains from 1 July to 9 July. Only 1.4 mm of precipitation had occurred in first five days of the month, which means Delhi received 46% less rainfall during the period.

Normally, it otherwise records 49.9 mm of rainfall in the first 9 days of July, according to officials.

Later in August, increase in rainfall had significantly affected the air quality in Delhi which had been oscillating between good and satisfactory categories for the past one week, making it one of the longest spells of clean air in the national capital this year, authorities said on Friday.

“Overall air quality of Delhi is in good category. Wide spread rain helped to the sudden improvement of the air quality. Increased rainfall activity is likely in association with approaching western disturbance and monsoon low, fairly widespread to widespread rainfall and isolated heavy rain falls are expecting over the weekend,” according to the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR).