English 
हिन्दी 
Close to a million people have been affected by floods in northern Bihar which have damaged embankments of major rivers such as Kosi, Bagmati and Gandak.
Water resources minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary said the washing away of these rivers’ embankments at several places has led to floodings in the West Champaran, Sitamarhi, Sheohar and Darbhanga districts.
The minister said that it was the first time in history that so much water has come down in Bihar through rivers from Nepal.
“All rivers of north Bihar received unprecedented flow of water due to 60 hours of rainfall in Nepal two days ago. This led to breach of all previous records of highest water level (HFL). For the first time, the water level in Kosi also rose above Birpur barrage,” he said.
The intensity of rainfall in Nepal, where over 200 people have been killed due to heavy downpour over the last three days, reduced on Monday.
Meanwhile, the demand for construction of high dam on Kosi River in Nepal gained momentum yet again. Deputy chief minister Samrat Chaudhary and Rajya Sabha member and former state water resources minister Sanjay Kumar Jha said that flood fury from Kosi could only be curbed if a high dam was built on the river in Nepal.
The idea of building a high dam on Kosi in Nepal was mooted decades ago, but it was abandoned due to international issues. Recently, the central government had approved ₹11,000 crore as financial aid to Bihar to build barrages to contain the flood devastation from rivers originating from Nepal.
So far, over 9.90 lakh people residing in 269 panchayats of 55 blocks of 16 districts in Bihar have been hit by the current spell of floods. The affected districts in the state include West and East Champaran, Araria, Kishanganj, Gopalganj, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Muzaffarpur, Supaul, Siwan, Madhepura, Purnea, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Saran and Saharsa.
Standing crops of paddy, maize and vegetables have suffered extensive damage in these districts. Officials of the agriculture department said that a preliminary meeting of the officers tasked to document the impact of the floods would be held on Tuesday for early assessment of the damage.
State agriculture minister Mangal Pandey said that the chief minister and the state government were closely monitoring the flood situation. “All required steps to provide relief to the flood-affected people are being taken… Food is being provided to the flood-affected people, medicines are being provided by the health department…,” added Pandey.
Prompted by the deterioration in the flood situation, a team of senior officers of the disaster management department (DMD), led by its additional chief secretary Pratyay Amrit undertook an aerial survey of marooned areas of Sitamarhi and Darbhanga districts on Monday and asked the authorities to step up rescue and relief operations.
Considering the gravity of the flood situation in north Bihar, six more teams of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDRF) from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Ranchi in Jharkhand are being deployed, officials said, adding that 12 teams of NDRF and 22 of State Disaster Management Authority (SDRF) have already been deployed in the relief and rescue operations.
The discharge of water from Valmiki Nagar and Birpur barrages on Gandak and Kosi rivers have reduced this morning.
