3.5mn hit by floods in Assam, Bihar
nPATNA/GUWAHATI: The flood situation in Bihar and Assam remained grim on Friday with close to 3.5 million people affected because of the deluge, officials in the two states said. Floods during the monsoon are not unusual in places like Bihar and Assam, but this year several parts of eastern India have received heavier rainfall and triggered severe floods.
Officials said northern Bihar is among the worst-hit regions because of heavy rains in Nepal, which have claimed 132 lives there. The rain has swollen the rivers that originate in Nepal.
The Gandak has breached embankments in Gopalganj and East Champaran and flooded vast stretches in the districts. Engineer in-chief, flood control, water resources department, Rajesh Kumar, said the restoration work was going on the western embankment that breached in
Gopalganj on Friday.
The floods in Bihar have so far affected around 7,65,000 people in 10 districts, officials said.
According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) data, floods have affected over 2.7 million people in 26 of the state’s 33 districts. As many as 96 people have drowned and landslides triggered by heavy rains have left another 26 dead in the state this season.
Over 50,000 displaced people have been sheltered in 301 relief camps while floodwaters have inundated crops over 1.22-hectare area across Assam.
“We are witnessing the third wave of floods. Rainfall and flooding have been taking place since May end. While rainfall has taken place as per IMD [India Meteorological Department] prediction, climate change could be a reason for lack of a gap between waves of floods,” said Pankaj Chakraborty, state project coordinator, ASDMA.
The floods continue to affect the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR) with 85% of its area of over 430 sq km inundated. This season, 125 animals of the park including 13 rhinos (9 due to drowning and 4 due to natural causes) have died in and around the park.
Prince William, the second in line to the British throne, wrote to KNPTR director P. Sivakumar on July 21, saying he and his wife, Catherine, were heartbroken to hear about the appalling devastation to the reserve and its precious wildlife because of flooding. “We have the happiest memories of our visit to Kaziranga in April 2016 and are shocked by what has happened. The deaths of so many animals, including one-horned rhino, is deeply upsetting.”
Despite living without a house in a tough city like Delhi, despite having to brave every day the dangerous times of the coronavirus pandemic, fruit seller Arman makes sure to have beauty in his life.
In the form of pink bougainvillaeas. This morning, bunches of the papery scentless flowers are artfully decked up on the mangoes piled up on his cart, here in central Delhi’s Sadar Bazaar.
“The decoration was my own idea,” says Arman, flashing a disarming smile that makes him so endearing that one would immediately want to shake his hands (but for coronavirus). Arman is as stylish as his cart—a white scarf, the gamchha, is flung about his tight-fitting shirt. His hair falls over his forehead, making a prominent curl on one side. His moustache is impeccably trimmed. “I shave daily,” he says.
In his early 20s, Arman has been a Delhiwalla for a decade. His family, comprising his mother and siblings, live in the village in Bahraich, UP. He sleeps on the patri, pavement, in the company of other hawkers like him—they all are from the same district.
It is the monsoon season and one never knows when it might start to rain at night, while asleep, so Arman recently bought a new tirpal, waterproof canvass sheet, for ₹2,000 from Sadar Bazaar. “I put it up at night upon my stretch of the pavement... sometimes the rainwater wets the gadda (mattress)... but that doesn’t disturb my geheri neend (deep sleep).”
Arman returns to his pavement only by 10pm. He has a quick dinner in a dhaba nearby, after which he goes to sleep. His night is not very long, to say the least. A mere couple of hours. At midnight he wakes up and boards an auto for Azadpur wholesale vegetable market to get a fresh stock of fruits for the next day’s sales. Last night he got langra mangoes from Benares. He returned to the patri by 4am, cleaned his cart, arranged it with mangoes and was ready to start the day.
That’s his daily routine.
This morning, after having a breakfast of kebab and parathas, he pulled his cart by a the city you never see