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North Bihar remained flooded on October 1 with major rivers still in spate due to heavy rainfall. Hundreds of villages remained marooned in affected districts two days after river embankments were breached at seven points.
Floodwaters inundated new areas and submerged a larger areas of agricultural land, damaging standing crops and washing away roads.
Taking note of the grim situation, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday conducted an aerial survey of flood-hit districts. “After aerial survey of areas affected by Kosi and Gandak, he directed concerned officials to intensify relief work,” said an official of the chief minister office.
Rising water levels in the rivers put pressure on embankments, threatening to breach in 10 districts including Supaul, Sitamarhi, Khagaria, Samastipur, Bhagalpur, Katihar, Kishanganj, Araria, West Champaran and Bhojpur.
The state Water Resources Department (WRD) directed local engineers to camp near embankments, monitor situation round the clock and take necessary anti erosion measures and repair work to protect embankments, said WRD minister of the state, Vijay Kumar Choudhary. ”A team of 106 engineers have been deployed to monitor all the sensitive and very sensitive places,” an official of WRD said.
Thousands of people displaced by the floods have been living under the open sky at elevated parts of the villages or the roads. These residents have been struggling for food, milk for children, safe water and fodder for
animals.
Though water release from Birpur Barrage on Kosi and Valmikinagar Barrage on Gandak has been reducing since the last two days, floodwater has been spreading fast and inundating new areas on September 30 and October 1.
“Water release from Kosi barrage has come down to 158,000 cusecs and from Gandak barrage to118,000 cusecs. But the Kosi, Gandak, Ganga, Bagmati, Burhi Gandak, Kamla Balan, Lalbakia, Mahananda, Adhwara, Ghaghra, Lakhendei and Parman rivers are still flowing above the danger mark at several places,” WRD officials said.
The state agriculture minister, Mangal Pandey, admitted that floods heavily damaged standing crops. As much as 150,000 hectares of standing crops, mainly paddy, maize, banana, vegetables, were damaged, according to a preliminary estimate, he said.
“We have asked district agriculture officials to visit flood-hit areas to assess the crops damage due to floods. They will submit a report soon,” said agriculture secretary Sanjay Kumar Agarwal.
Hundreds of people displaced after Kosi breached its western embankment near Bhubhol village in Kartarpur block, Darbhanga district late on September 29 are yet receive relief materials and no one from administration visited them till Tuesday morning.
“We have been taking shelter on high rise places after our villages were inundated, houses destroyed by heavy water current. More than 36 hours have passed but we got nothing from the local authorities, no help,” said Sushila Devi, one of the dozens of flood victims.
Another affected individual, Harideo Yadav, said the breach of Kosi embankment has worsened the flood situation in villages in Kartarpur. "We don’t know how long we have to spend life as displaced flood victims."
Yadav said the breach has inundated dozens of villages and heavily damaged infrastructure, including brick houses and destroyed standing paddy crops.