With the Parechhu nightmare subsiding, the situation in flash floods-hit Shimla and Kinnaur districts of Himachal Pradesh limped back to normal on Monday even as relief and restoration work were on in full swing.
The discharge of water in the Sutlej river, which rose to 5,000 cumecs on Sunday due to flash floods in its tributary Parechhu river -- originating in Tibet -- was reduced to 2,000 cumecs at the Nathpa dam site and there were no reports of rise in its level upstream, official sources said.
The Hindustan-Tibet national highway had been blocked due to numerous landslides along the course of the Sutlej on Sunday.
However, the badly damaged stretch of road at Neogli, 5 km from Rampur, was opened for light vehicles on Sunday.
The people living along the banks of the Sutlej, who had left their houses in panic on Sunday and moved to safer places, had started returning back home and life was limping back to normal, they said.
The 1500 mw Nathpa-Jhakri Hydro Power project, which was closed on Saturday due to heavy silting, remained closed for the third day on Monday and there were no hopes of early resumption of power generation as the silt content continued to be as high as 30,000 ppm against a maximum permissible limit of 5,000 ppm, project general manager J K Sharma said.
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