PM Narendra Modi to make aerial survey of flood-hit Purnia today

PATNA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi would make an aerial survey of the four districts of Purnia division on Saturday and review with CM Nitish Kumar the damage caused by the floods in 18 districts of the state.
Sources said CM Nitish and deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi would present the details of the estimated loss to the PM at Chunapur Air Force airport in the morning. After the PM’s visit and flood review, a central team would make the ground assessment as floodwaters started receding on Friday.
Of the 1.67 crore people affected by the floods, 8.50 lakh trapped in remote areas were rescued to safer points. The damage caused to infrastructure is being assessed, but 63.61 lakh hectares of cropped area have been destroyed.
By Friday, the floods have already claimed 418 human lives, including the highest of 160 in the four districts of Purnia division (Araria 87, Katihar 40, Kishanganj 24 and Purnia 9).
Both Araria and Kishanganj districts have contiguous border with Nepal, and the four districts together are strategically located, being link to the North East, Sikkim and Bhutan through chicken’s corridor in northern West Bengal.
The floods have already damaged link roads, including East-West Corridor at some points, apart from causing collapse of the six major bridges in the four districts, with two of them in Araria alone. Overall, 203 state highways and major district roads have also been damaged at various points.
The devastation in terms of the loss of human lives has been extensive in the 14 remaining districts also — Sitamarhi (43), West Champaran (36), East Champaran (32), Madhubani (28), Darbhanga (26), Madhepura (22), Gopalpur (20), Supaul (16), Saharsa (8), seven each in Khagaria, Saran and Muzaffarpur, four in Sheohar and two in Samastipur.
On Friday, 28 teams of NDRF with 118 boats and seven columns of Army with their own boats, along with 16 State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams with their 92 boats were still engaged in the relief and rescue operations. Two IAF choppers have returned to their original bases.
Sources said chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, principal secretary of disaster management department (DMD) Pratyaya Amrit and bureaucratic heads of other departments concerned left for Purnia on Friday. When the floods hit the Purnia division on August 13, the CM had contacted the PM, Union home minister Rajnath Singh and defence minister Arun Jaitley for the immediate dispatch of NDRF teams, columns of Army and Indian Air Force choppers to conduct emergency and accelerated rescue and relief operations.