Kullu: A water leakage from the Parbati-II hydropower project flooded areas near Rella village in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu district late Saturday, damaging houses and agriculture fields and forcing residents to flee.Water carrying muck and debris from a project dumping site surged downhill into Palchara village before draining into a nearby rivulet.Banjar sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Pankaj Kumar, who visited the site on Sunday, told TOI the incident occurred near Adit 5, a horizontal access tunnel, at RD 14,000.“A technical malfunction in an air-pressure valve connected to the head-race tunnel allowed water to escape through the valve, causing the sudden discharge,” said the SDM. added that the air valve is designed to release air upwards, but due to the malfunction, water escaped through it, resulting in the sudden flow towards the area below.Preliminary assessment by the administration has put the damage to a house and other infrastructure at Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore, excluding losses to agriculture and horticulture.Villagers said the debris stored at the project’s muck dumping site aggravated the situation as it was carried downhill by the water flow.Rajender Chauhan, a Banjar resident, said the incident could have caused much greater damage had the flow taken a different direction.“It was sheer luck that the water turned towards the side it did. After damaging few houses, it flowed directly into a rivulet. If it had diverted towards the other side, Rella and the houses below the temple would have faced massive destruction,” Chauhan said.Environmental activist Guman Singh said the area has experienced land subsidence and sliding in the past.“All the villages of the panchayat, located below Adit 5, are situated on sloping terrain, where the soil is loose and friable. A dumping site is located behind Palchara and any failure of the debris or slope could cause extensive damage to the settlements located below,” said Singh. “During the monsoon in 2025, a landslide occurred here due to the debris dumped at the site, damaging two houses in the village. Ever since water was introduced into the tunnel last year, cracks have also appeared in the houses of many villages here including Raila village,” he said.The 800-MW Parbati Stage-II project is a run-of-the-river scheme on Parbati river, with an 83.7-metre-high concrete gravity dam at Pulga. The dam diverts the river water into a 31.56-km head race tunnel, which carries it underground to the powerhouse at Siund in Sainj valley.Probe orderedKullu administration has ordered an inquiry into the incident under the chairmanship of Sainj Tehsildar. Banjar SDM Pankaj Kumar said administration officials from departments concerned, along with teams from NHPC’s Parbati-II and Stage-III projects, would be part of the inquiry. “The committee will establish the reasons behind the malfunction and recommend measures, after proper study, to prevent such incidents in the future,” said SDM.2 yrs ago, Kangra faced damageThe flooding follows a similar incident in May 2024, when a penstock burst at the 25-MW Lambadug project in neighbouring Kangra district, inundating Multhan village with water and mud. The project water entered houses, shops and agricultural fields, destroyed standing crops and triggered a mud and debris slide that damaged property. Villagers had demanded the govt declare Multhan a high-risk zone.
