Water discharge from Mettur dam increased to 1.1 lakh cusecs today, following inflow of 1.34 lakh cusecs of the 1.43 lakh being released from two Karnataka dams. This resulted in the dam reaching its full capacity of 120 ft for the second time in the last 20 days.

The heavy inflow resulted in the increase of capacity to 119.8 ft about 10 am and reached its full capacity around 2 pm, official sources said.

Mettur dam reached its full capacity on July 23, after a gap of five years.

A flood alert has already been sounded in all the districts where the Cauvery water flows, including Thiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Cuddalore. , following the discharge of large quantity of water as a result of opening 16 sluice gates, they said.

Water flow from the Kabini was 80,000 cusecs and KRS over 62,300 this morning, forcing the release from Mettur dam from 60,000 around 8 am to 80,000 around 1 pm and later, to 1.1 lakh cusecs, as against the inflow of 1.3 lakh, they said.