Patna: Ganga Paswan had been spending sleepless nights since September 27. His village is close to the western embankment of the Kosi river in the Darbhanga district. “The water level of the Kosi river was rising rapidly and the water had reached the height of the embankment. We were afraid that the embankment would break at any time,” he says.
Ganga Paswan’s fear proved true.
About 80 feet of the embankment of the Kosi river broke at midnight on September 29 in Bhobhaul village of the district, causing severe floods in about a dozen adjoining villages.
Ganga Paswan, a resident of Narkatiya Bhandaria village of the district, says, “We would stay awake all night wondering when the water level would rise and enter our houses. Early on September 30, at around 12.40 am, the news reached our village that the Kosi embankment was breaching.”
Paswan and his family members immediately fled the house, kids in tow. They came to the road built on the embankment. “We could not even take grains, valuables and clothes kept in the house,” he tells The Wire. Since then, he has been living on the road with his family.
Bhandari Yadav, a resident of Kubaul, another flood-affected village of Darbhanga, has been living on the embankment with his family. “Five of my cattle were washed away in the flood water and the grains were also spoiled,” he says.
“The water in the Kosi river had increased so much that it started flowing over the embankment. We had already suspected that the embankment would break there. The administration had also informed the people through microphones.”
Local people say that when water was flowing over the Kosi’s western embankment, they had advised the local administration that dumping soil would stop the erosion, but no action was taken. The soil finally came at night, but by then the embankment had broken, locals say.
Seven breaches, three river embankments
This year, rains in the monsoon in Bihar have been less than normal. The state has recorded 798.3mm of rainfall in the monsoon till September 30, which is about 20% less than normal rainfall of 992.2 mm, according to the state disaster department. But heavy rains have occurred in the Terai region of Nepal in the last few days. This led the water level of rivers like Kosi, Gandak, Bagmati, and Mahananda – all originating from Nepal – to increase drastically.
The Birpur barrage on the Kosi river reported a discharge of 661,295 cusec of water at 5 am in the morning on September 29, which was the highest amount it has released since 1968. The Valmiki Nagar barrage on the Gandak river reported a 562,500-cusec water discharge on the night of September 28, which was highest amount of water released after 2003.
As a result, the embankments of rivers broke at seven places in four districts – Sitamarhi, West Champaran, Sheohar and Darbhanga. Due to the breaking of the embankment, flood water spread rapidly in the villages immediately adjoining them. In many areas, the flow of water was so severe that even concrete houses collapsed. Lakhs of people became homeless overnight.
“In Bhobhaul village, 50 houses were completely destroyed and submerged in the water due to the breaking of the Kosi embankment. Many homes are also reported to have been swept away by the strong current of water,” says 50-year-old Bhandari Yadav.
Yadav says this is the first time that he has seen such a fierce form of the Kosi river. He told The Wire, “In the year 2004, the embankment of the Kamla Balan river had broken, but even that did not cause so much damage. For the first time in my life I saw that the water of the Kosi river was flowing over the embankment.”
Dilip Mukhiya, a resident of Daka Bhaluaha village in Darbhanga, lives by the Kosi river. When the water level of the Kosi started rising, he took shelter on the asbestos roof of his house with his wife, daughter and son. “The water level of the river was rising rapidly, so we left the grains in the house and went to the roof and spent 24 hours there. Six months of grains were spoiled in the flood,” he says. After the breach of the Kosi embankment, the water spread and the water level decreased. “We would have died if the breach had not happened. There is still 2-3 feet of water in the house. We are currently living on the banks of Kosi,” he tells The Wire.
Experts say that flooding in October is not a common thing and attributed it to climate change.
“The last time Bihar was inundated in October was in 2016. This time heavy rainfall in Nepal at the end of September caused the flood. Over the years we are seeing erratic weather conditions. There is no feeling of summer in the summer season, no rainfall in the rainy seasons. This is the impact of climate change,” Sunil Chaudhary, river expert and retired professor at Tilka Manjhi University, told The Wire.
30 lakh people affected by floods
According to official figures, 30.62 lakh people of 18 districts of Bihar including Supaul, Nalanda, Gaya, Bhagalpur, Katihar, Darbhanga, Sitamarhi have been affected by the floods. According to the officials of the Disaster Management Department, 44 relief camps and 266 community kitchens are currently running. The department has distributed 278,451 polythene and 98,376 dry fruit packets among the flood-affected families.
At the same time, 1,973 boats, 19 teams of NDRF and 24 teams of SDRF have been deployed to take people trapped in the floods to safe places.
Many still allege that administrative help has not reached them till now.
Ganga Paswan says, “We are living in the dark on the road for two days. No arrangements have been made by the government till now. People are spending their days hungry and thirsty. Children are crying in hunger, but the administration is nowhere to be seen.”
Many villages are in the grip of severe floods due to the breaking of the embankment of Bagmati river in Belsand block of Sitamarhi. Flood victims say that they have been surrounded by water for three days, but have not received any help from the administration.
Aman Thakur, a resident of Madhkaul village of the district, says, “The embankment broke at 11 am on Sunday. Since then we have been surrounded by water, but no one has come to see us yet.” He further says, “As many as 2,500 to 3,000 people of our village have been living on the roofs of their houses for three days. The nearest safe places from here are three kilometres away and the entire road is submerged. How can we go?”
“We have nothing to eat. On Tuesday, some sacks of chuda (flattered rice) were dropped from the helicopter, but most of them fell into the water. If we do not get help soon, we will die of hunger,” he tells The Wire.
Social workers have held the administration responsible.
Mahendra Yadav, founder and activist of Kosi Navnirman Manch, says, “There was an alert about flooding inside the embankment, but people did not think that the impact would be so big. People made the wrong assessment. Also, the administration did not have any arrangements to take them to safe places. People are afraid to leave their homes. Where will they stay?”
“The administration is responsible for the flooding outside the embankment. The government claims that it spends lakhs of rupees every year to protect the embankments. How did the embankments break at so many places?” he asked.
Floods in Bihar
According to the data, Bihar accounts for 17.2% of India’s flood-prone areas. The state witnesses floods almost every year causing huge economic and human losses.
In the last decade, floods have led to the death of 2,300 people and crops worth crores of rupees have been damaged.
Bihar is home to eight major perennial rivers and over 600 seasonal rivers that experts believe contribute to annual flooding.
Kamala and Bagmati rivers originate in Nepal, while the Gandak comes from Tibet, and the Kosi has its upper catchment areas in the Himalayas, including Nepal and Tibet. The Burhi Gandak starts in West Champaran. The combined catchment area of these rivers is approximately 36,187 square kilometres in the state.
The Ganga, which also originates in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand, flows through Uttar Pradesh before reaching Bihar.
As a low-lying region, Bihar is susceptible to flooding from these rivers, especially during the monsoon season when rainfall increases.
To control the flood, the National Flood Control Policy was formulated in 1954. Under this policy, embankments were constructed along the Kosi River and subsequently on other rivers. By 2017, Bihar’s Water Resources Department data says that about 3,759.94 km of embankments had been constructed till 2017. But, the embankments failed to stop the annual flooding.
According to the available data, in 1954, only 2.5 million hectares of Bihar were flood-prone which increased to 6.8 million hectares.
Professor Chaudhary says, “Embankments are definitely not a solution to floods at all. If that were the case then why does Kosi cause heavy floods so often?”
Chaudhary adds, “Geomorphology of rivers has changed due to deposition of silts. So, the local solution will not work. there should be a national policy to minimise the impact of floods.”
