Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi August 28, 2008, 0:18 IST

Bihar seeks Rs 1,000 crore and 100,000 tonnes of foodgrain immediately.

Work to fill the nearly two-and-a-half kilometre breach in the Kosi barrage embankment has begun with the help of initial supplies from the Farrakka barrage. The breach has caused the worst flood in Bihar in recent history.

Business Standard / New Delhi August 28, 2008, 5:58 IST

Food riots erupted on Wednesday in eastern India, where more than 2 million people have been forced from their homes and about 250,000 houses destroyed in what officials say are the worst floods in 50 years.

One person was killed in Madhepura district when angry villagers fought among themselves over limited supplies of food and medicines at overcrowded relief centres.

Nitish not serious about relief: Raghuvansh

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded that the floods in Bihar be declared a national calamity. It urged the Prime Minister to intervene to ensure that the Army and the Air Force came to the rescue of lakhs of people who were marooned and in danger of drowning.

Party spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad said that India must talk to Nepal and work out a way to repair the breach in the Kosi Dam.

K. Balchand

Over 2 million affected as flood situation worsens in Bihar

Flood fury: A rail track swept away by floodwaters in Madhepura district of Bihar on Tuesday.

PATNA: The Army on Tuesday joined the rescue operations in the flood-hit Bihar, where over two million people are reeling under its impact. The breach in the Kosi embankment continued to widen, letting out more water.

The river started swelling, marooning people for the first time after the embankment was constructed to protect the region.

Bs Reporter / New Delhi August 27, 2008, 5:53 IST

A 13km-wide current flowing at enormous speed over a stretch of 100km. Over a million people have lost their crops, land and homes. It could get worse
Subodh Varma

New Delhi: Every once in a while, nature reminds humans that it is the boss. The Kosi river, which gathers water from some of the highest mountains in the world, including Everest, and enters India in north Bihar, has changed its course and shifted over 120km eastwards, going back to a course it had abandoned more than 300 years ago.

Ashok K Mishra BIHAR

BIHAR'S sorrow, the Kosi, has changed its course near Kusaha village in Nepal for the first time in the last 50 years after breaching the East Kosi afflux embankment threatening millions of lives. Over 12 lakh people are trapped between the old and the new streams of the river leading to plans for unprecendented evacuation effort in the northern part of the state.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar has appealed to the people of the twin districts of Madhepura and Supaul, that may be wiped off the map, to abandon houses and find shelter in relief camps.

Patna,

With over 20 lakh people bearing the brunt of floods in 14 districts of Bihar, three Indian Air Force helicopters continued to drop relief materials in the worst hit Supaul, Araria and Madhepura for the fifth successive day as the turbulent waters of the Kosi submerged fresh areas in the three districts.