The flood situation in several districts of Bihar worsened on Tuesday as all the major rivers continued to maintain the rising trend. The incessant rain for the last couple of days has only poured miseries for the people here, thereby posing flood threat to areas surrounding even the state capital. The Water Resources Department said that all the embankments in the state were safe.

However, reports reaching from south of Patna said that river Punpun was flowing 220 metres above the danger mark. The surging flood water, after breaching the embankment at one point, had entered 10 to 15 villages in the area.

Patna DM, Mr B Rajinder said that efforts were on to plug the breached area with sand bags.

Rescue operation
“Though the flood water has not entered the villages, still we have deployed eight boats to ferry the affected people,” admitted the district magistrate.

The situation was equally grim in North Bihar as at least eight districts face the flood threat due to continuous discharge of rain water from the upper catchment areas in Nepal.

Worried over the continuous rainfall in Pokhra (Nepal), which leads the river Burhi Gandak (in Bihar) to swell, Water Resources Minister Ramasharay Prasad Singh took stock of the situation and said, “Our engineers are keeping a close vigil on the 2,430-km long embankment.”

Road traffic
However, the road traffic on National Highway-77, which connects Muzaffarpur with Sitamarhi, has been badly hit as flood water has overtopped the roads at many places.
According to a conservative estimate, around 15 lakh people have been affected in different districts of Bihar, including Bhagalpur, Saharsa, Sheohar and Madhubani. Train services were suspended on Bhagalpur-Mandarhill section, while Jamalpur-Howrah Express had to be cancelled. Other trains were diverted through Katihar.