At least five districts in North Bihar were put on high alert after reports poured in that two rivers, Gandak and Bagmati, were in spate posing serious threat to people residing in villages of these districts.
The situation turned worse when Bagmati breached 20 feet embankment in Sitamarhi inundating most of the villages in Runnisaidpur block of the district.
The flood threat has come within days of first spell of monsoon and exposed the Water Resources Department (WRD) which had made tall claims of carrying out the flood protection measures in full swing.
The WRD Secretary Ashok Kumar Sinha, however, shifted the onus on Nepal. “The situation is beyond our control as there has been heavy downpour in Simra in Nepal. It has witnessed 142 cm of rainfall in the last three days resulting in large quantity of water being discharged by the Bagmati that eventually overflowed its banks and breached the embankment near Runnisaidpur in Sitamarhi,” said the secretary-cum-commissioner of the WRD. As a consequence, the road traffic on National Highway-77, which connects Muzaffarpur with Sitamarhi, has been badly hit. The district administration has prohibited plying of vehicles on NH-77 as the flood water has overtopped the road at several places.
A team of senior officials led by the engineer-in-chief has been rushed to the site to plug the breach.
 and take emergency steps.
Expressing concern that overtopping of embankments had become an annual affair during monsoon, the secretary did admit that the flood protection work was a bit delayed and said that the concerned chief engineer had been placed under suspension for laxity.