Bhubaneswar, Aug 31: As many as 23 breaches have occurred in the coastal deltaic area of Orissa affecting new areas as the floods in the Mahanadi system continued unabated, official sources said. While the largest number of seven breaches had occurred in Cuttack district, embankments had given way in five places each in Kendrapara and Jajpur districts, two each in Puri and Jagatsinghpur districts and one each in Angul and Sonepur districts, official sources told news agency here today.

Unconfirmed reports, however, said that seven and four breaches had occurred in Jajpur and Puri districts respectively.

The Mahanadi River, its branches and sub-branches, criss -crossing the deltaic plains including Chitrotpala, Paika and Genguti, played havoc encircling scores of villages and marooning large populations. The details were yet to be received.

The situation in the Hirakud Dam, however, had shown some improvement with the inflow from Chhattisgarh---also witnessing major floods in the Mahanadi---scaling down since last night.
The inflow into the Hirakud reservoir was measured at 6.53 lakh cusecs---about two lakh cusecs less than last evening---while the outflow was 8.06 lakh cusecs.

About 12.17 lakh cusecs of flood waters was passing the delta head this morning.
Bureau Report