Tehri dam overflows,60 killed so far

The water level rose because of the controlled discharge of water to avoid any damage to downstream 400-MW Koteshwar hydel project. The discharge of excess water from the Tehri dam rose to 11,000 cusecs in the afternoon. But Tehri district magistrate Radhika Jha said there was no threat to the dam. Rainfall in the upper catchment areas,Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers,has receded. An alert has been sounded in Koteshwar district,Hardwar and Rishikesh, she said.

Meanwhile,the water level in the Ganga at Hardwar continued to be over the danger mark. Ganga,which has been in spate since Saturday,has inundated nearly three dozen villages in and around Hardwar and Rishikesh. On Monday,the water level of the river at Hardwar,which was 2 metres above the danger mark till Sunday,dropped to 60 centimetres above the danger level.

District Magistrate Meenakshi Sundaram said there was no rainfall in Hardwar or the nearby Ganga catchment area on Monday,which brought down the water level. The Har-ki-Pauri is intact and was never inundated. There have been traffic disruptions,even on the railway network between Hardwar and Dehradun,because of landslides, she said.

Meanwhile,the Met officials said Uttarakhand was expected to witness about 25 mm rain in the next three days,but it was likely to be widely distributed across the state.