Umesh Kumar Ray

Harpur Bochha is a village in Vidyapatinagar block of Samastipur district of Bihar. The village, which has a population of about 11.5 thousand people and  2349 houses, remained inundated with rain and floodwater throughout the year followed by waterlogging.

Since last week, people of Birjain village have been protesting against erosion by the river bank. They are demanding that the government should put in efforts to prevent river erosion and save their houses, otherwise they will continue with their Satyagrah and perform Jal Samadhi (suicide by drowning). Sattore, a flood-prone Panchayat has about 3000 houses.

“We went through a lot of trouble over the month. By God’s grace, we are still surviving."

Floods coupled with erosion increase the woes of Bihar

For about last three weeks, Dhananjay Kumar along with his wife and children have been living on the embankment under their plastic shed following the late night July floods that submerged their house.

Two weeks ago, the Kanakai River flowing through Kishanganj rendered dozens of families homeless. While the people in the region are staying under plastic sheds, the government has turned a blind eye to their plight.

Mohammadin is also one of them. He tells the India Water Portal,

"All of a sudden, water entered the house at night. Goods and cattle were submerged. There is no place to eat or drink. We have been in trouble for three days, but no one has come to help us.” The elderly Gauri Singh complains, with mixed feelings of anger, pain and helplessness. 

Flood havoc continues to increase in Bihar. Until recently, the effect of flood was only in eight districts across the state but now it has spread to ten districts.

Flood waters inundated the house of Ramchandra Yadav, a resident of Khoknaha village of Supaul, for three days. During these days he cooked food by setting up a brigade on the outpost and spent nights at the same post.

The annual floods that wreak havoc in Bihar have knocked the state this year as well. So far, the flood waters have entered 150 panchayats of 30 blocks across eight districts, namely Sitamarhi, Shivhar, Supaul, Kishanganj, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj and East Champaran  .

An official of Bihar's Disaster Management Department said,