Bokaro, Sept.

6: Urban Bokaro witnessed floods for the first time in its four-decades-plus history, thanks to a combination of factors that included heavy rain through the night and a sudden decision to release 12,000 cusecs of water from Tenughat dam. Incessant rainfall in Bokaro steel city measuring over 114.3mm in the past 28 hours till 2pm today drizzle continued thereafter would perhaps have run off on its own. But manmade mayhem clogged drainage, riverbed and government land encroachments and the release of around 12,000 cusecs of water from three sluice gates of the dam submerged over 20sqkm of Bokaro steel city and satellite town Chas. There was no water supply this morning while power was cut from 8am to 2pm. Many sectors of the steel city saw pillars of water up to 5ft entering their homes. Dozens of cars were left bobbing on main roads that resembled waterways, while trekkers and autos stayed off. Areas worst affected were Lake Road, sectors II, III-D, IX and Lakra Khanda. It was an equally bad day for neighbouring Dhanbad lashed by 126mm rain till 2pm today, which threw normal life, including power and water supply, off gear. Ranchi clocked 82mm weathermen term anything above 65mm as heavy rain while Jamshedpur, with a measly 3.6mm, was the only city spared. In Bokaro, water swelled up to 471ft, well past Tenughat dam danger mark of 464ft, forcing a knee-jerk reaction to open three of the 12 sluice gates last night without warning those living in low-lying areas near inundated rivers Damodar and Garga. An angry Bokaro deputy commissioner Sunil Kumar is known to have called up Tenughat dams executive engineer S.N. Singh asking him never to do so without telling residents well in time. I may have to release dam water again, if it rains heavily again, said Singh. Seeing the rising water level inside Bokaro steel plant premises, the management had also started releasing water in river Garga since morning. They stopped after a few hours as panic-stricken employees started calling to say their homes would get flooded. In Chas, water flooded the ground floor of KM Memorial Hospital owned by Giridih MP R.N. Pandey. The ground floor homes at Kuer Singh Colony, Bhojpur Colony, Kailash Nagar, Ispat Colony, and Subhash Colony were also partially submerged. Seeing the water rise on NH-23 opposite KM Memorial Hospital, Bokaro DC Kumar directed the disaster management department to be ready. He also asked Chas SDO Sanjay Singh to keep an eye on the bridge linking Bokaro and Dhanbad, which got flooded and forced traffic to stop for over 20 minutes. According to a Bokaro agriculture department release, Chas witnessed 226mm, Chandankyari 183mm, Chandrapura 179mm, Jaridih 83mm and Bermo 76.6mm. Gomia at 41.2mm and Nawadih at 36.4mm, clocked the lowest on the rain-meter. The district received the states highest rainfall in the past 24 hours. But as rain has stopped now, everything is under control, the DC told The Telegraph later in the evening. Bokaro steel plant chief of communications Sanjay Tewary thanked citizens for braving the sudden inundation. But the management, which looks after the citys upkeep, was caught off guard as the clogged drains proved. I was surprised that drains are choked as Bokaro is otherwise very neat. But I had never seen rains like these here, a 72-year-old Sector IIIB resident, R.K. Singh, said. Hemlata S. Mohan, the state womens commission chairperson and advisor to DPS Bokaro, said if rains continued, all schools should be shut. I felt really bad for schoolchildren stranded in flooded roads, she said.