Bihar floods reach 48 lakh people across fifteen districts
The count rose from 47.3 lakh on Friday evening. September rainfall is 27% above normal and eleven river points are above the danger mark.
The flood situation in Bihar worsened on Saturday, with the number of people affected rising to nearly 48 lakh across 15 districts, PTI reported.
Approximately 47.9 lakh people have been affected across 575 gram panchayats in 87 blocks. The figure stood at 47.3 lakh on Friday evening — an increase of around 60,000 people in under a day.
Which districts
The affected districts are Patna, Bhojpur, Saran, Vaishali, Bhagalpur, Begusarai, Buxar, Samastipur, Munger, Katihar, Lakhisarai, Khagaria, Purnia, Madhepura and Araria.
That list runs across the state, from Buxar and Bhojpur in the west through the Patna belt to Purnia and Araria in the north-east. It is not a localised event confined to one river system.
The rainfall
Bihar has received 104.1 mm of rainfall in September, about 27% above normal, officials told PTI.
That, combined with rainfall in the catchment areas in Nepal, has caused several streams and rivers to swell. Bihar's flooding is frequently driven as much by what falls in Nepal as by what falls in the state, because the rivers that cross the border carry it down within hours.
The river levels
At 6am on Saturday the Ganga at Sultanganj in Bhagalpur was flowing at 36.4 metres — 1.9 metres above the danger level, the disaster management department said.
The water resources department listed rivers above the danger mark at several points: the Gandak at Dumariaghat, the Kosi at Baltara and Kursela, the Burhi Gandak at Khagaria, the Punpun at Sripalpur, the Bagmati at Benibad, and the Ghaghra at Darauli and Gangpur Siswan.
The Ganga was above danger level at Digha, Gandhi Ghat, Hathidah, Bhagalpur, Kahalgaon and Munger.
Six danger-level readings on a single river across a single state is the picture of a system carrying more water than its channel holds along most of its length, rather than at one pinch point.
Erosion
With several rivers running high, the water resources department has cautioned against sudden and rapid riverbank erosion. Officials have been directed to monitor the situation and to report any erosion promptly.
The department has told officials to monitor for erosion and to report any incident promptly, which is the instruction it has issued alongside the river readings.
Work to secure embankments was under way at Rangra in Bhagalpur, according to the department.
The forecast
Most parts of Bihar are likely to remain partly cloudy on Sunday and Monday, with the possibility of strong winds, the Bihar Meteorological Centre has said.
That forecast does not indicate further heavy rainfall in the state itself over the next two days. It says nothing about the catchments across the border, which is where the water in the Kosi and the Gandak originates.
What has not been reported
The figures released cover people affected rather than people displaced, and no casualty count has been given in this account. Nor has the state said how many relief camps are operating or how many people are in them.
The distinction matters for reading the number. Forty-eight lakh affected describes everyone in an inundated panchayat, not everyone who has left home.
