The flooding remains across 14 districts of Bihar. According to the Bihar state disaster management department, 8 people have died in the flooding since Monday 18 August, bringing the official death toll to 17. Some local media outlets claim the toll is 25 or more.
According to the Times of India, the districts still affected by the floods are: Nalanda, Saharsa, Supaul, West Champaran, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Patna, Sheohar, Araria, Sheikhpura, Khagaria and Gopalganj. Nalanda is considered to be the worst affected area.
Around 1.4 million people have been affected by the recent spate of floods. Over 110,000 people have been evacuated, with nearly half living in one of the 115 temporary camps set up by state authorities for the flood victims.
There have been no further breaches in river embankments. Earlier in the week there was some hope that the flooding has started to recede. However it seems the situation has changed and officials from Bihar’s water resources department (WRD) reported a rise in levels of the Kosi, Gandak and the Ganges rivers.
A senior WRD official told TOI that the Kosi, Gandak and the Ganga were showing a rising trend. Ganga is flowing above the danger level at Gandhi Ghat in Patna and Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur district. On Monday 18 August nearly 40,000 people had to be evacuated from the districts of Saharsa, Supaul, Darbhanga and Gopalganj.
Bihar is currently one of 6 states in the Indian Himalayan region to be affected by floods after heavy rainfall across the region and in river catchment areas. Bihar was one of the first of the 6 states to see flooding, which first began around 15 August 2014 (see our report here). Prior to that, thousands of people living in vulnerable areas near rivers were evacuated as a result of the flood threat caused by the landslide in Nepal earlier this month.
