Standing crops on large tracts of land on either side of the Bhima in Afzalpur have been damaged as the river began overflowing on Sunday.
Since the Veer Dam, built across the Nira, a tributary of the Bhima, and the Ujjain Dam, built across the Bhima in Maharashtra, received heavy inflow owing to the continuous rainfall in the catchment area, about one lakh cusecs of excess water was released into the river from these dams a few days ago.
As a precautionary measure, irrigation authorities in Afzalpur released about 1.3 lakh cusecs of water from Sonna Barrage built on the Bhima in the taluk as the barrage was almost full. The overflowing Bhima flooded agricultural fields in many villages downstream and destroyed standing crops.
As water discharge from the Sonna Barrage was on Monday reduced to 60,000 cusecs from 1.3 lakh cusecs, the situation was brought under control.
Many villages in the taluk, including Gaur (B), Diksangi, Tellur and Kerakanahalli, remained disconnected as the Amarja river overflowed submerging smaller bridges and cutting off connectivity.
Meanwhile, road connectivity between the holy village, Deval Ganagapur, and many villages in Jewargi taluk was restored as the bridge connecting them was thrown open for public use on Monday.
