The flooded Teshipur village in Puri. (PTI)

Cuttack, Sept. 23: Floods in coastal Orissa over the past four days signal a crisis in the control system in the Mahanadi delta area, believe experts.

While rise in riverbeds pose problems in gauging the water-carrying capacity of rivers in the delta, the spate of breaches has left increasing number of areas marooned and has taken mandarins, in charge of flood control, by surprise.

Talking about the floods, a senior irrigation department official said the present calamity, where more than 16 lakh cusecs of water was passed through the delta head at Naraj, warranted a reappraisal of the system.

He added that a fresh study on the water carrying capacity of delta rivers and heightening of embankments should be started as an immediate measure. “There is a crying need for revamping the entire network of embankments in the Mahanadi delta with the required hydraulic gradient vis-à-vis their structures and rise in riverbeds due to silt deposits since 1982,” he said.

Condition of some 2,000km of the 3,924km of river embankment network is weak and has turned vulnerable due to breaches, as they have not been revamped since 1982 — except for some routine repairs in 2001 and 2003.

Consequently, breaches occurred one after the other in the Mahanadi, Luna, Chitrotpala, Kathajodi, Daya, Bhargavi, Kushabhadra and Devi over the past four days causing inundation and marooning in Cuttack, Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Khurda and Nayagarh districts.

Most breaches were caused due to “faster rate of seepage and rate of piping”.

The embankments had evidently become vulnerable to breaches due to gradual weakening of the embankments caused by high seepage. “Though embankments made from alluvial soil normally register high seepage, the process has been faster as the hydraulic gradient of the embankments is 2:1 as against the required 4:1,” he said.

The Hirakud multi-purpose dam was conceived to save coastal Orissa from the ravage of floods. But the Mahanadi delta has become vulnerable to floods in recent years. The current floods are a case to the point.

Services resume

Train services from Puri resumed after the floodwater receded from a railway bridge between Khurda Road and Puri and after the tracks were declared fit.

Trains had been suspended since yesterday after floodwater from Bhargavi flowed over bridge no. 44 between Delanga and Birapurushottampur on the Khurda Road-Puri section. East Coast Railway sources said Puri-New Delhi Neelachal Express, Puri-Howrah Express and Puri-New Delhi Express that were terminated in the morning have been rescheduled.

Puri-Howah Express, scheduled to leave Puri at 8.05pm, will leave from Bhubaneswar at 10.30pm.

However, the Howrah-Puri Express, Howrah-Puri Sri Jagannath Express leaving Howrah and Hatia-Puri Tapaswini Express leaving Hatia have been cancelled due to non-availability of corresponding rake.