North Bihar districts put on high alert

PATNA: CM Nitish Kumar on Tuesday cautioned the residents of 14 districts against imminent floods, as the meteorologists have predicted heavy rainfall in the basins of Bagmati and other rivers.
The districts concerned are East Champaran, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Muzaffarpur, Samastipur, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Begusarai, Khagaria, Supaul, Saharsa, Madhepura, Bhagalpur and Banka.The CM also directed the disaster management department (DMD) to alert the DMs concerned in advance and stressed on the need to warn people living near the embankments, so that they could be evacuated quickly when needed.
Similarly, the CM has asked the water resources department (WRD) to ensure that the engineers remained alert at vulnerable points on the embankments. NDRF and SDRF teams deployed in the districts have also been asked to remain alert
Accordingly, the WRD and DMD asked the north Bihar DMs to remain on high alert with regard to tackling likely floods, as the catchment areas of the rivers will receive moderate to heavy rainfall both in the foothills of Nepal and also across the state over the next four days. DMD principal secretary Pratyaya Amrit and WRD secretary Sanjeev Hans held a videoconference with the DMs concerned to take stock of their preparedness to tackle floods in view of the looming threat. Madhubani DM Dr Nilesh Deore requested for two more teams of state disaster response force (SDRF) and additional boats to be used in Jhanjharpur and Jainagar subdivisions. The DM has instructed the BDOs and COs concerned to remain watchful.
The DMD had deployed 13 teams of NDRF and SDRF, one each in Katihar, Araria, Supaul, Kishanganj, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj, East Champaran (Motihari), West Champaran (Bettiah), Nalanda, Saran (Chhapra), Patna and Buxar districts on June 24.
In fact, rainfall in the range of 40mm to 79.8mm has been received at 12 places in the catchment areas of Gandak river in Nepal in the last 24 hours. Accordingly, the discharge of water through Valmiki Nagar barrage increased from 71,300 cusecs at 6am to 99,800 cusecs at 2pm. The trend shows rising water level.
Similarly, the water discharge through Barahkshetra barrage collected from the tributaries of river Kosi in Nepal — 72km north of Birpur barrage in Supaul district — also increased by around 14,000 cusecs to 98,150 cusecs.