The Powai lake in Mumbai started overflowing on Saturday as torrential rains continued to lash the city for the last few days. The lake started overflowing 24 days earlier than compared to last year.
Powai Lake, built in 1890 at a cost of Rs 40 lakhs, is one of the most important artificial lakes in Mumbai. The water of this lake is not potable and is mainly used for industrial purposes.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said the Powai lake started overflowing at around 3 pm. Last year, the same lake was completely flooded on July 5 at around 6 am.
The water of the lake has a storage capacity of 545 crore litres. Due to heavy rain in the catchment area of the lake for the last few days, the lake started overflowing, said the Hydraulic Engineer department of the corporation.
The catchment area of the lake is about 6.61 kilometres and if the lake is full, the water area is about 2.23 square kilometres. When the lake reaches its storage capacity and is full and flowing, the water flows into the Mithi river.
Mumbai has been receiving heavy rainfall since the last few days, and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a red alert for the city for Sunday and an orange alert for June 14 (Monday). After the IMD’s forecast, the BMC also issued a “high alert” to all the agencies considering “very heavy rainfall” in the next two days. Seven reservoirs, Bhatsa, Upper Vaitarna, Middle Vaitarna, Tansa, Modak Sagar, Vihar and Tulsi supply 385 crore litres of water to the megapolis.
Surjitt Sahani
