Bhubaneswar, July 9 -- Four sluice gates of the Hirakud Dam in Odisha's Sambalpur opened on Thursday to release the season's first floodwaters. The gates were opened at 11:00 am.

As per reports, more gates are scheduled to open later in the evening.

The water level at the Hirakud reservoir kept rising following recent incessant rains in the upper catchment areas. By 6:00 am today, the reservoir's water level had reached 614.65 feet.

The dam is currently receiving a massive inflow of 1,64,009 cusecs of water per second. Meanwhile, the outflow was at 27,590 cusecs before the gates were opened.

After the sluice gates were opened, water was discharged into the Mahanadi river at an accelerated rate of up to 1 lakh cusecs.

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