Ganga at Gandhi Ghat beats the 2016 record as 22.4 lakh face Bihar floods

The Ganga at Gandhi Ghat in Patna stood at 50.57 metres on Monday morning, 5 centimetres above the August 2016 highest flood level of 50.52 metres. The Water Resources Department also logged new peaks at Pandarak (43.92 metres, 19 centimetres above the 2021 mark), Danapur (52.63 metres) and Banka Ghat (49.47 metres). Hathidah touched its 2021 record of 43.52 metres late on Sunday.

Bihar's Disaster Management Department evening bulletin listed about 22.42 lakh people affected across 12 districts, 70 blocks and 368 gram panchayats. The districts are Patna, Bhojpur, Saran, Vaishali, Bhagalpur, Begusarai, Buxar, Samastipur, Munger, Katihar, Lakhisarai and Arwal. An earlier Sunday count had put the figure near 19.6 lakh in 11 districts. The extra names are the flood spreading, not a change in method.

Other rivers still above the red line

The Gandak at Dumariaghat and Hajipur, the Kosi at Baltara and Kursela, the Budhi Gandak at Khagaria, the Punpun at Sripalpur, the Bagmati at Benibad and the Ghaghra at Darauli were all above danger level. In Patna the Punpun, Dardha and Mahatmain damaged stretches of embankment. In Chhapra's Dariyapur a 20-foot breach on the Mahi put several villages under water.

The one easing number is the Sone. Discharge at Indrapuri barrage fell from a season high of 5.54 lakh cusecs in midweek to about 1.96 lakh cusecs by Sunday afternoon. Because the Sone meets the Ganga near Patna, that drop takes pressure off Digha and Gandhi Ghat. Officials still warned that the main-stem surge would travel downstream toward Hathidah and Bhagalpur over one to three days.

Trains and deaths

East Central Railway stopped traffic on the Patna-Gaya section after Punpun water covered part of the girder at bridge number 21 near Punpun Ghat, between Punpun and Parsa Bazar. Local trains on that section were cancelled. Several expresses were diverted or scratched. For a state that moves people and grain by rail first, a closed Patna-Gaya line is a second flood.

Patna Press, compiling district reports, put the drowning deaths at least at 20. In Bhojpur two minors drowned on Saturday in the Mufassil police station area. Those figures are incomplete. Flood death tallies in Bihar usually rise after the water falls and families report who did not come home.

What the record at Gandhi Ghat means

Gandhi Ghat is the city's public gauge. When it beats 2016, every low mohalla in Patna City already knows. The 2016 flood is the comparison people here use. Five centimetres does not sound like a catastrophe on a page. On a ghat it is the difference between a step that is still dry and a lane that is not.

Relief camps and boats are the state's immediate tools. The longer file is embankment repair on the Punpun and Dardha before the next pulse. IMD has a heavy-rain warning out for a wide band of northern and eastern India this week. A second rise on a river that has already beaten its record leaves less freeboard than the bulletin's calm tone suggests.

The numbers to watch on Tuesday are Gandhi Ghat, Hathidah and whether bridge 21 comes back. If those three ease, the 22.4 lakh figure will start to shrink. If they do not, the flood is still travelling.