Highlights
- 18 villages have been evacuated in Dhar and Khargone districts of MP
- People have been evacuated after a dam on Karam river developed leakage
- An alert had been sounded for downstream villages a day before when water seepage was reported
Madhya Pradesh dam scare: At least 18 villages have been evacuated in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar and Khargone districts after a leakage was reported in an under-construction dam.
Authorities have shifted residents of 12 villages of Dhar district and 6 in Khargone district to safer places.
According to authorites, the soil of the under-construction dam on the Karam river have started slipping.
Moving people to safer places has been taken as a precautionary measure, said Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Home Dr Rajesh Rajora.
An alert had been sounded for downstream villages a day before when water seepage was reported from the dam.
The dam's reservoir filled up with water for the first time this monsoon as rain battered the region.
The dam is being constructed at a cost of Rs 304 crore.
The 590-meter-long and 52-meter-high dam, a medium-level irrigation project, has 15 million cubic meter (MCM) water in its reservoir, ACS Rajora said.
A team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Emergency Response Force (SDERF) besides two helicopters and an Army column have been put on stand-by, Rajora said.
Senior officials including divisional commissioner, inspector general, district collector, superintendent of police, engineering-in-chief and chief engineer of the Water Resources Department among others were camping at the site, he said.
Madhya Pradesh Water Resources Minister Tulsiram Silawat and Industries Minister Rajvardhan Singh Dattigaon were also at the dam site to oversee repair work, officials said.
Earlier in the morning, Dhar collector Pankaj Jain had said that efforts to control the seepage from the dam were unsuccessful and the seepage had in fact increased.
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