Flood worsens in Bihar, toll rises to 36; more districts affected

The flood situation in Bihar worsened on Sunday even as two more people lost their lives taking the death toll to 36, while flood waters entered fresh areas, pushing up the number of affected districts to 17.

“One death each has been reported from Patna and Gopalganj district today (Sunday) taking the flood toll to 20. However, if deaths caused by house and riverbank collapse, electrocution, snakebites or drowning are taken into account, the toll will go up to 36,” Disaster Management Department (DMD) Emergency Control Room in-charge C B Pandey said.

Over 18.2 lakh people in the state are now reeling under floods. Pandey also said flood waters from the Mahananda river entered parts of Purnia district today taking up the number of affected districts to 17.

Nalanda, Darbhanga, Saharsa, Madhepura, Sheikhpura, Patna, Supaul, West Champaran, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Araria, Gopalganj, Khagaria, Bhagalpur and Purnia are the affected districts now. Of these, Nalanda, Sheikhpura and Darbhanga are worst hit.

The DMD is running 146 relief camps to provide food and shelter to around 33,200 rescued and displaced persons. The number of people staying at the camps is decreasing as many have left for their relatives’ places.

Seeing the trend of heavy rainfall in the Nepal catchment areas of several rivers flowing through Bihar, the Central Flood Control Room of the state Water Resources Department has issued a communique to all its chief engineers to keep their subordinates on alert and conduct intensive patrolling on the river embankments to negate any chance of breach.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi conducted an aerial survey of Nalanda district and held a meeting with ministers, MLAs and senior officials at International Convention Centre in Rajgir over the flood situation.

Manjhi said the state government will not allow any scarcity of funds to hamper relief operations and directed the officials to prepare an estimate of all flood-related losses within 15 days.