K. Balchand

Nowhere to go: A goods train halting at a station in flooded North Bihar on Wednesday. The station, where many people have taken refuge, is completely cut off from the rest of the State.

PATNA: With flood waters swamping more areas in Bihar, the race is to prevent the breach in the Kosi embankment from widening further. The State government is hoping to complete the task in the next couple of days with the cooperation of Nepal, but the weatherman sounded pessimistic fearing more rainfall in the catchment areas in the coming days.

Food riots as Indian floods destroy 250,000 homes

PATNA, India (Reuters) - 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.

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

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.

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

The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) said on Tuesday that the devastating flood caused by the Saptakoshi River breaching its embankment damaged crops worth Rs 300 million in Sunsari district.
A week-long field assessment conducted by an M0AC team shows that paddy cultivation suffered the biggest loss of Rs 180 million in the district, which is one of the leading paddy producers in the country.
The total area under paddy cultivation in Sunsari has been recorded at 50,920 hectares this year.

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.