Bihar braced for the fourth round of deluge on Saturday with major rivers in spate following heavy rain across the state and neighbouring Nepal.
The previous rounds of floods have hit 27 out of the 38 districts, affecting and displacing several lakhs of people and killing at least 43.
The situation started worsening after the barrages built along the Indo-Nepal border started releasing excess water in the rivers flowing into Bihar since Friday morning.
Around 3.5 lakh to 4 lakh cusecs was released continuously from the Valmikinagar barrage into the Gandak river in West Champaran district, while 1.73 to 2.25 lakh cusecs was released from the Birpur barrage into the Kosi in Supaul district on Friday.
The discharge level decreased on Saturday but was still considered high. It was in the range of 2.5 to 3 lakh cusecs in the Gandak and 1.9 to 2.1 lakh cusecs in the Kosi.
One cusec (cubic feet per second) is the flow of 28.32 litres of water per second at any particular point of reference.The huge discharge into the Gandak and Kosi increased their flow above the danger level at several places, bringing fresh floods in West Champaran, Supaul and other districts. The local administrations have started evacuating people from villages located in the low-lying areas.
The floodwaters are expected to spread again in many districts where people were gathering themselves up after suffering over the last three months. The water will slowly make its way to the Ganga and also increase its level. Other rivers including the Adhwara, Kamla Balan, Burhi Gandak, Lal Bakeya and Mahananda are still flowing above the danger level.
West Champaran, East Champaran, Sheohar, Gopalganj, Siwan, Araria, Supaul, Begusarai, Madhubani, Madhepura, Jehanabad and Nalanda districts were severely affected by the deluge in June, July and August.
At present, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Khagaria, Saharsa, Patna, Vaishali, Lakhisarai, Bhagalpur, Saran, Katihar, Munger, Samastipur, Purnea, Sitamarhi and Kishanganj districts are flood-hit, affecting around 30 lakh people and displacing over 2 lakh. The 43 people who lost their lives in the floods this year are from these districts.
“Much water is being released into the Gandak and Kosi rivers. We are keeping a watch on the development. We will have to assess the situation further to find out the areas where the floodwaters spread,” deputy chief minister Renu Devi, who also holds the disaster management portfolio, told The Telegraph.
She said the state government was taking all steps to provide relief to the flood-affected by deploying the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) in the affected areas, while engineers from the water resources department are working to protect the embankments along the rivers.
“We are running 327 community kitchens for the flood-hit people. Altogether 17 teams of the NDRF and 12 teams of the SDRF are conducting rescue and relief operations in the affected areas. We are also giving Rs 6,000 each to the affected families,” she added.
The state government is also assessing the damage to crops and infrastructure in the flooded areas.
