Floodwaters from Ganga inundate several villages in Bihar

The situation in the campuses of Tilka Majhi University and the adjacent engineering colleges also remained grim and students were asked to vacate their hostels and relocate to safer places after the water level in Ganga continued to surge.

PATNA: Over two dozen villages under Gopalpur block in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district have been submerged under floodwaters, as the water level of river Ganga continued to swallow fresh areas in the adjoining districts on Sunday, officials said.

At Digha Janardan Ghat in Patna on Sunday. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

According to officials, floodwaters have inundated about 30 villages of nine panchayats of Gopalpur block. The situation in the campuses of Tilka Majhi University and the adjacent engineering colleges also remained grim and students were asked to vacate their hostels and relocate to safer places after the water level in Ganga continued to surge, which remains 29cm above the danger level (DL) in Bhagalpur and about 90cm at Kahalgaon.

“The river, which is already flowing above the DL at Gandhi Ghat and Hathidah in Patna has already swallowed a vast stretch of low-lying areas of Bhojpur, Khagaria, and Bhagalpur, forcing natives to take shelter at safer places. Vehicular traffic at dozens of villages in these districts were also snapped for the past 24 hours as the flood waters from Ganga overflowed the roads at different stretches,” said a senior officer of the road construction department (RCD).

Besides Ganga, other major rivers like Gandak, Kosi, Bagmati, and Burhi Gandak continued to flow over the danger levels (DL) at different stretches of their course on Friday. Reports said that Gandak was flowing 23cm above the DL at Dumariaghat in Gopalganj and about 10cm at Langanj in Vaishali, while Kosi had jumped the DL by around 1.16 metre at Basua in Supaul.

Chief engineer, flood control, water resources department (WRD), Anil Kumar said that all embankments built and maintained by the department are safe and intensive monitoring is being carried out to avoid any possible breach.