Bihar floods leave 47 lakh people wet as the Ganga sits 2 metres over danger at Sultanganj

Bihar's Disaster Management Department said Friday that more than 47 lakh people were affected by floods across 15 districts as the Ganga and its tributaries stayed above danger level at a string of gauges. A later bulletin put the figure at 46.88 lakh in 561 gram panchayats and 88 blocks. The worst-hit districts named by officials were Bhagalpur, Patna, Saran, Vaishali, Begusarai, Katihar, Purnea and Buxar. Other lists added Bhojpur, Munger, Lakhisarai, Khagaria, Madhepura, Samastipur and Arwal.

At Sultanganj in Bhagalpur the Ganga was at 36.62 metres at 6 am, 2.12 metres above the danger mark, though the level was falling. The same bulletin placed the Gandak above danger at Dumriya Ghat; the Kosi at Baltara and Kursela; the Burhi Gandak at Khagaria; the Ganga again at Digha, Gandhi Ghat, Hathidah, Bhagalpur, Kahalgaon and Munger; the Punpun at Sripalpur; the Bagmati at Benibad; and the Ghaghra at Darauli and Gangpur Siswan. Four embankment breaches were reported in Bhagalpur. Some had been closed. Work continued on the rest. A breach at the Brahmottar Dam in Gopalpur block was brought under control overnight by a Water Resources team and local residents.

Rain inside Bihar and heavy rain in Nepalese catchments both fed the rise. September rainfall in the state was running 20 to 27 per cent above normal, depending on the bulletin: 90 mm in one count, 104.1 mm in another. That is a monsoon that has not yet finished with the plains.

Relief numbers show how thin the formal system is against 47 lakh affected people. Fifteen camps were housing between 11,255 and 12,260 people. Community kitchens numbered 1,194 in one report and 1,221 in another. Officials said about 3.10 to 3.13 lakh polythene sheets and about 48,300 to 48,400 dry-ration packets had been given out. Those figures mean most affected families are still in villages and on roofs and embankments, not in camps.

Five people died in Koyli Khutha village in Bhagalpur after trying to pull a relative from deep water, according to one district account. Statewide death totals were not consolidated in Friday's public notes.

Bihar floods on this scale are not a surprise in September. The Ganga, Kosi, Gandak and Burhi Gandak have a long file of breaches. What Friday adds is the coincidence of high gauges on several rivers at once and a camp system that is feeding thousands while the affected count is in the tens of lakhs. Embankment repair in Bhagalpur is the near-term engineering task. The political task is the gap between kitchen counts and the people still outside them.

Patna's urban wards flood from the Ganga and from blocked drains at the same time. Vaishali and Saran sit on the north bank where the Gandak meets the larger river. Katihar and Purnea take the Kosi. A bulletin that names all of them in one sentence is describing several floods that happen to share a date. Relief that is counted at state level can miss which river is still rising.

Polythene sheets are the standing response because camps cannot hold 47 lakh people. A sheet keeps a family on a bund. It does not restore a breached village road or a drowned store of seed. Once the gauges fall, the argument will shift to compensation and to which embankment cuts were old maintenance failures. Water was receding at Sultanganj. If the Nepal catchments stay wet, the Kosi and Gandak can rise again before the repaired cuts in Bhagalpur take load.

The next DMD bulletin that lists gauges and kitchen counts side by side is the document that will show whether Friday was the peak or the middle of the rise.