When the rains pounded Nirmal district on July 13, around 50 residents of Dam Gudem village in Kaddam mandal had to move to a hillock after an alert was issued to evacuate the village and move people to a higher ground.
Apart from the non-stop rain, villagers had to overcome the gushing waters of the canal that came in between the village and the hillock.
Dam Gudem is a few 100 metres from the over six-decade-old Kaddam Narayana Reddy Project. Inflow to the dam was more than its discharge capacity of 3 lakh cusecs. By the time, the villagers decided to leave, water in the dam had crossed its Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of 700 feet.
Moving towards the hillock was quite a task. According to the head of the village, Thodasam Jaithu, they had to tie a rope to trees on either side of the water body for a careful movement of people. Thick and wide thermocol sheets were used as boats to cross the canal.
Pointing towards a black tarpaulin sheet rolled into a bundle and a couple of ropes left in the Sun to dry, Mr. Jaithu said that they had used these sheets to set up a tent for the villagers to stay on the hillock. Around 50 of them from 15 families had to accommodate themselves in it.
Away from home and out in the cold and rain, the fear of flood did not let them sleep. Similar was the case for people in at least 11 more villages located along the Kaddam river.
Nirmal District Collector Musharraf Faruqui said that after the water level in the dam reached 698 feet on July 12 midnight, they decided to evacuate people from the 12 villages adjacent to the project.
“By 4 a.m. on July 13, we evacuated around 2,700 people,” he said. Fear of breaching of the dam also engulfed villagers. The Kaddam dam was opened in 1958. After unprecedented rains, the dam breached in August that year itself. The dam was reconstructed with flood gates in 1969.
Witnesses
A few kilometres away, three old men of Devunigudem village in Dasturabad mandal recalled three floods that they had witnessed in their life: 1958, 1995, and July 13 this year.
They feared the entire village might be washed away in the recent flood waters. As a result, they carried cash and other valuables from their houses while moving to safer locales.
T. Rajanna, one of them, said that they even took their ration cards, Aadhaar cards, and bank passbooks. Some youngsters also packed their educational certificates.
Mr. Faruqui said that fortunately, there was no loss of life, and a survey to assess crop loss was under way.
