Bihar braces for Kosi fury after Nepal landslide
Evacuation on in 8 districts, disaster response troops on standby as Kathmandu releases floodwaters
The Bihar government Saturday sounded a flood alert in eight districts and launched a massive evacuation in anticipation of the Kosi breaching its banks, hours after a landslide in Nepal blocked the course of the river.
The emergency response followed an alert from the Nepalese government that 10-metre-high walls of water may inundate villages on the Indian side. A government source in Delhi told HT water in excess of 2.2 million cubic metres — nearly half of Delhi’s daily consumption in peak summer — was expected to travel the 270km distance and reach border villages in Bihar at 4am Sunday, hopefully giving the state time to ensure minimal loss of lives.
Eight people were confirmed dead and hundreds displaced in Nepal’s Sindhupalchowk district, 120km east of Kathmandu. Over a hundred were missing.
The 40-metre-high blockade on the river — called Sunkoshi on that side — formed a four-kmlong lake that rose several metres, sinking houses and a hydro-power plant. With the water level rising dangerously, the army conducted two controlled explosions in the blocked area, letting the accumulated water flow downstream, and towards northern Bihar bordering Nepal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is travelling to Nepal on Sunday on a two-day visit, expressed concern.
The PM said all possible assistance should be provided to the Bihar government and to Nepal.
All 56 sluice gates of the Kosi barrage on the border have been opened as a preventive measure, said Jawahar Lal, superintending engineer of the water resources department in Patna.
“The Bihar government has started taking action for the evacuation of nearly 45,000 people from villages in the embankment area in 22 panchayats of Supaul district,” a home ministry official said. Similar steps were being taken in seven other districts. In Patna, Anirudh Kumar, special secretary, disaster management department, said lakhs of people would have to be evacuated.
“We are trying to get more information but getting realtime water data from Nepal has always been a problem,” the ministry official said. In its absence, Delhi was supplementing information from Kathmandu with the Central Water Commission’s assessment and satellite imagery to get a sense of the expected inundation in Bihar.
The official added that eight teams of the National Disaster Response Force have been deployed and an additional seven were being moved in from neighbouring West Bengal.
In addition, the Bihar government rushed six columns of state disaster relief forces from Purnia, Darbhanga and Patna to be on standby in the districts likely to be impacted. It appealed to people to move to elevated spots with their cattle, or take shelter in camps set up by district administrations in the Kosi region (Supaul, Madhubani and Saharsa).
Lakshmi Prasad Chauhan, district magistrate of Supaul, which would be the first to be hit, said, “We are on the job (evacuation). However, we cannot predict when the waters will come.”
Principal secretary, state disaster management department, Vyasji, who goes by one name, said the state was preparing for the worst and had set up relief camps in eight districts. “We are preparing to tackle the worst eventuality.”