Bihar floods leave 43.64 lakh people cut off across 14 districts

Bihar's Disaster Management Department counted 43.64 lakh people under flood water or cut off by it across 14 districts as of Thursday, 10 September. The tally covers 527 gram panchayats in 85 blocks. The districts on the list are Patna, Bhojpur, Saran, Vaishali, Bhagalpur, Begusarai, Buxar, Samastipur, Munger, Katihar, Lakhisarai, Khagaria, Purnia and Arwal.

The Ganga at Sultanganj in Bhagalpur was at 36.72 metres at 6 a.m. Thursday, 2.22 metres above the danger mark, the department said. The level was stable rather than rising at that hour. The same bulletin placed the Ganga above danger at Digha, Gandhi Ghat, Hathidah, Bhagalpur, Kahalgaon and Munger. The Gandak was above the mark at Dumriya Ghat, the Kosi at Baltara and Kursela, and the Budhi Gandak at Khagaria.

September rainfall in the state had reached 83.6 millimetres, 24 per cent above normal, the weather office said. Heavy rain in Nepal's catchments added water that Bihar cannot store. That combination, not a single cloudburst over Patna, is what put the Ganga and its north-Bihar tributaries over the gauges.

Relief numbers are large and still thin against the affected population. The state was running 951 community kitchens. Jagran and Amar Ujala said those kitchens had fed 33.88 lakh people two meals a day. Fifteen relief camps held 11,255 people with shelter, food and medical cover. About 2.57 lakh polythene sheets and 40,600 dry-ration packets had been distributed. Livestock feed of 6,692 quintals had gone out. NDRF and SDRF teams were deployed.

Bhagalpur remains the hardest single district in the Times of India district desk account. More than 6.4 lakh people and nearly 1.5 lakh families were affected there. Flood-hit panchayats in the district rose from 82 to 92, villages from 269 to 376. District Magistrate Alankrita Pandey has been on the ground. Officials said 23,412 people from 4,696 families had been moved to safer ground in that district alone. Community kitchens in Bhagalpur rose from 91 to 183 and fed 5,42,772 people in a day, against 1,92,276 earlier.

Water has started to fall in places. At Shahkund the Ganga had touched 38.81 metres, above the 2021 high flood level of 36.75 metres, then dropped back to 36.75 metres on Thursday. That is still 2.24 metres above danger. The Water Resources Department said the river was also receding from Buxar down to Hathidah. Receding water is not the end of the emergency. It is the start of disease, silted houses and a second wave of displacement as families walk back into wet rooms.

Fifteen camps for 11,255 people, set against 43.64 lakh affected, show the gap between those who can reach a camp and those who stay on an embankment or a roof. Community kitchens close that gap only for the hours they serve food. Polythene sheets are the more common shelter. They do not keep snakes, contaminated wells or collapsed latrines at bay.

North Bihar floods on this scale are a seasonal system, not a surprise. The Kosi, Gandak and Ganga have been doing this work for as long as there have been district gazetteers. What changes each September is the count, the kitchen list and whether Nepal's rain arrives in the same week as Bihar's. This week they arrived together.

The near-term watch is the next gauge reading at Sultanganj, Hathidah and Baltara, and whether camp numbers rise as water falls and roads reopen. The longer watch is how much paddy and how many mud houses this particular crest takes with it. Those figures will not be in Thursday's bulletin. They will show up in the compensation lists that follow.

School calendars in the flood belt are already broken. Some districts have used rain holidays. In Bihar the closure is wet classrooms and cut roads, not motorcades. Teachers who reach a raised building will find enrolment lists that no longer match the children who can walk in.