DADU, Dec 10: Irrigation officials released on Sunday 250 cusecs of water from Manchhar Lake into the Indus through Aral Wah amid demands by villagers living around the lake that the department should release more water from the swollen lake to reduce pressure on its embankments.

The sudden rise in the lake’s level in the wake of heavy winter rains, which flooded a few hundred acres of agricultural land and inundated some villages a couple of days ago, has alarmed the villagers.

They fear the continuous rise in the lake, which according to executive engineer Shafqat Hussain Wadho gets 600 to 700 cusecs a day from MNV Drain, will flood their homes and that mere 250 cusecs discharge will have almost no effect on its level.

But Mr Wadho and Dr Ahsan Irfan, water technologist of the University of Sindh, and officials of Water and Sanitation Agency, Hyderabad (WASA), who oversaw the discharge have to ensure that the ratio between discharge of the lake’s saline water and river’s water is maintained at 1:50 in order to avoid a repeat of May 2004 tragic incident in which 42 people in Hyderabad had died after drinking water mixed with highly toxic water from the lake.

The tragedy led to the formation of Manchhar water control committee, which decided to maintain the ratio of lake’s discharge and river water at 1:50 (1000 cusecs of lake water to 50,000 of river water) and carry out tests to ascertain its quality.

The WASA team took water samples from Aral Wah, Band Manchhar and Indus River for tests.

Mr Wadho told Dawn that Manchhar’s water released into the river at a ratio of 1:50 would reach Kotri Barrage in three days. At present the lake’s level was at recorded at 113.9 RL.

Dr Irfan said that the small quantity of lake’s water would not affect people’s health. WASA officials encamped in Kotri, Sehwan and Kotri Feeder had taken samples from water and carry out tests from time to time, he said.

DEMO: A large number of people from villages situated around the lake staged a demonstration in Sehwan on Sunday. They demanded that water in the lake, which had risen to dangerous levels, should be released into the river in large quantity to reduce pressure on its embankments and save villages from flooding.