Gandak river breaches embankment in Bihar's Gopalganj district

GOPALGANJ: The Gandak river breached an embankment at two places in Gopalganj district of Bihar on Friday, affecting at least 50,000 people of 45 villages, an official said.
Three teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel are engaged in the evacuation of people affected by floodwaters, District Magistrate Arshad Aziz said.
The river turned turbulent following a discharge of 4.36 lakh cusecs of water from the Valmikinagar barrage on July 21 due to heavy rainfall in the catchment areas in Nepal.
The Saran embankment was breached at Devapur village of Barauli block and Puraina village of Majha block, the DM said.
A ring bund was breached at Jadavpur Rajwahi village and a sluice gate broke at Devapur village under pressure from the rising waters of the river, he said.
Efforts are also on to plug the breaches, the DM said.
The river water has also overtopped NH-28 due to the breaches, disrupting vehicular movement between Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and the districts of Muzaffarpur, East Champaran and West Champaran in Bihar.
Train services on the Darbhanga-Samastipur route have been suspended since 7am due to floodwaters touching a girder bridge near Hayaghat in Darbhanga district, East Central Railway (ECR) CPRO Rajesh Kumar said.