Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Mettur Dam at brim!

The largest water basin of TamilNadu, the Mettur Dam has crossed the full reservoir level of 120 feet on Sunday night has widespread smile across everyone face. Just like a newborn baby, the over inflow of water in Cauvery River creates a celebration mindset across the state esp. the districts of delta which were left to drought for the last two years. The dam was last seen touching its maximum level of 121 feet in 2005 has took 8 years to behold a certain look, thanks to the southwest monsoon and heavy rainfall in the catchment of Cauvery lifting the water level that had gone down up to 15 feet in June.

Mettur Dam
The dam crossed 100 ft last week after two years gap, following Krishnarajasagar and Kabini dams releasing surplus water of 90,000, the outflow had reached over 1,00,000 cusecs. Also with the increase in discharge, the power generation by the Mettur Hydro power station has reached the maximum of 250 MW. Meanwhile people were issued warning through beating of drums in interior villages and people living along the water catchment area to move to safer place. It is just the monsoon and heavy rainfall in Karnataka that made possible filling up the Mettur Dam rather receiving the share of water in Cauvery.

In its 79 years of history, this was the 38th time the dam has touched the full reservoir level. The Mettur Dam is one of the largest and oldest dams in India and it is constructed in a gorge, where the Cauvery River enters the plains.

Mettur Dam, from the other end
I have crossed the Mettur Dam less than half a dozen times and explored it once after its Platinum Jubilee celebrating in 2010. The first image was captured from a view point, on the hillock adjacent to the Mettur Dam which supports the dam at one end and the other one was shot from the opposite side, overlooking Ellis Park across the Mettur Dam and less amount of water released through upper shutters. The water level was about 75 feet then! I have number of photos on the Mettur Dam and things to share which I will do later soon.

10 comments:

Lakshmi said...

Wow..and I would love to go now

TexWisGirl said...

i am glad it has filled and hope those downstream are not flooded out.

Pooja Mittal said...

Nice that dan us filled and not flooded
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Jyoti Mishra said...

Wow that really looks so beautiful.
filled up to the brim :)

Rajesh said...

Wow! every dam in the country is near its brim after a long time.
Great shots.

Indrani said...

Anything filled to brim looks good. This too.

Destination Infinity said...

Dams are cool - I've been to the Aazhiyar Dam and it's an excellent place to be! Good to know about the excess water due to good monsoons. Let's hope there will be more bumper crop this time around.

Destination Infinity

Optimistic Existentialist said...

This would definitely be interesting to explore. Dams fascinate me. It's amazing how they have the strength to hold back that much water.

Vetirmagal said...

Wow!. A good news indeed மாதம் மும்மாரி பெய்து, மக்களின் மனதை நிறைய வைத்து விட்டது. செல்வி 'அம்மாவின்' ஆட்சியில் அணை நிறைவது பெருமையே!

One of the oldest it is. What a pride of the state it was in 50s and 60s.

Thanks Jeevan for the photographs. Waiting for some more posts on the dam.

Anonymous said...

Its just monsoon and heavy rainfall in karnataka made it possible?

Is there any other source of water in your place which fills up dam, so karnataka can also use the same source and release water?