As Sindh anticipates a very high flood between Sept 1 and 3 at Guddu Barrage — its first barrage on the Indus River — due to the swollen eastern rivers currently wreaking havoc in Punjab, the downstream province has asked the authorities to reduce outflows from Tarbela Dam to help it manage the deluge.

As multiple rivers submerge Punjab, Sindh has reached out to the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) to reduce outflows from Tarbela and retain water at Chashma Barrage — a request accepted by the authority.

“Yes, we have reduced flows from Tarbela (at Sindh’s request), where 155,000 cusecs outflow was recorded at 8pm Wednesday,” Irsa Director of Operations Khalid Idrees Rana told Dawn.

He also confirmed that “storage can be taken slightly higher than maximum storage of 1,550 feet. We can take it to 1550.2 or 1550.3 feet for now,” he argued.

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