Supaul, 12 km from the breach site,
was the first district in Bihar the Kosi swept through, leaving the
chief engineer’s office at Birpur, which monitors the Kosi barrage and
embankments, in more than seven feet water. “Supaul was considered a
safe zone after the embankments were built, hence except for a few
villages inside the embankment, the people do not know how to tackle
floods,” says Chandrashekhar who runs Gramsheel, an NGO that works on
water-related issues in the district. Yet no advance warning was issued
to the people, says Ram Ishwar Prashad, deputy collector, Supaul.
Along with hunger the people are now fighting diarrhoea. According to
Chandrashekhar, nearly 100 people have died of diarrhoea in Supaul.
Madhepura, which never witnessed floods except in Alamnagar, Chausa and
Purnaini blocks, is worst-hit, with more than a million struggling for
food. Army reached here only on August 26. In Mirganj and Rampur people
died of hunger. “We have confirmation of 14 deaths. These could be
hunger deaths but at this point of time we are focusing on relief and
rescue. Work is a bit slow because it’s a district that never faced
floods,” said sub-divisional officer Dharmendra Singh.
Besides logistics, people’s reluctance to leave homes also hampered
rescue work. “People fear their goods and cattle will be stolen. They
think this is yet another flood and water will recede in a few days.
They are unaware of the breach,” says Amrit of the Disaster Management
Department.
Fluctuations in the water level because of rains in Nepal too threw a
spanner in rescue works. Army and navy had to postpone rescue
operations for three days in Banmankhi, Purnia, because the water level
had dipped too low for boats to ply. Air force provided back-up when
water level receded. It was a tough rescue operation. Boats on several
occasions were trapped by trees and huts under the water, say army
officials. Sixteen people were killed in Madhepura and Purnia when two
boats capsized during rescue operations.
Herded in relief camps or marooned on rooftops, embankments, roads and
every dry patch, without enough food and water, people began to lose
patience. On August 22, an irate mob badly beat up MLA Janardan Yadav
when he reached his constituency Narpatganj in Araria. Two days later
in Madhepura another MLA Rameshwar Yadav of Singheshwar constituency
was roughed up. At Kumarakhand in Madhepura district administration
vehicles were ransacked.
Food packets dropped by helicopters often triggered stampedes or riots
by the hungry masses. In Banmankhi as soon as trucks carrying food
material would arrive, hundreds of hands would snatch it, emptying the
truck in minutes.
The state government tried reshuffling district magistrates to speed up
relief operations. District magistrates of Supaul, Saharsa and Araria,
and the superintendent of police in Supaul were given marching orders
on August 24. On September 6, Madhepura district magistrate was also
removed following protests by the flood-affected people.
By September 10, the government and armed forces were operating 324
relief camps in the affected districts, providing shelter to 315,000
people. Many more are still on their own.
In search of relief
Purnia, bordering Madhepura and Saharsa, witnessed heavy influx of the
flood-affected. About 30,000 migrants at Banmankhi survived because of
the help of the local people, who provided them bamboo and patua, a
fibre used to make ropes, for making tents.
Several people have taken shelter at Raniganj on the Indo-Nepal border.
Until September 3, no food or tarpaulin sheets were provided to these
people by either the Nepal or the Bihar government. When dte reached
there, most had covered their houses with either blanket or saris. Some
had gone to the Kosi barrage to beg for food. Pawan Kumar Mandal of
Basantpur, Supaul, who reached there on August 24, says nobody from the
government came to help them. He had sent a member of his family to beg
at the barrage.
Across the border at Kunoli in Nepal, a boy walked along the Kosi
Barrage, his hands tucked into his T-shirt, a dazed look on his face.
He was almost run over by a vehicle. Was he a survivor of the floods?
He stared back in silence. A little prodding and he said he was Ashok
Kumar Mishra of Birpur in Supaul who crossed the border after eight
days of wait for rescue. In his T-shirt were a handful of rice flakes
he was taking for his mother. Father? Washed away by floodwater.
Some 500 families had crossed the border in hope of succour but have
not received anything except tarpaulin sheets. On September 4, their
anger spilled over and they blocked Mahender Rajmarg, Nepal’s main
highway at Kanauli near Kosi Barrage, demanding food. Tajinder Singh
and his family of five left their house at Birpur, Supaul, on August 24
in hope of getting relief. For almost four days they had nothing to eat
except some rice flakes they had brought with them. Their neighbour
Naina Singh, who had also migrated, said, “We are still waiting for
relief agencies to distribute food to us.”
Some in desperation blocked a un truck even as representatives tried to
convince the crowd that some food would be given to them in a few hours.
The displaced Nepalese, however, got a better bargain. Near the Kosi
barrage, some 6,000 families were living in temporary hutments.
International agencies, including UN’s World Food Programme, MSF, Oxfam
and International Red Cross, were working. Most families from Nepal
have been provided basic ration to survive for at least 15 days. The
Nepal army is holding medical camps for flood victims.
Shelter’s not enough
Temporary relief camps in Bihar in the first few days only gave
shelter; they did not provide food. Those who brought goats, hens and
calves on their shoulders were bartering them for food. There was no
arrangement for cooking as firewood was in short supply. Although food
supplies were restored after a fortnight, hygiene deteriorated. Scores
of people were rushed to hospitals after being infected with
water-borne diseases. There was oversupply of old clothes, which people
sold in the market to get milk for babies and food.
The situation improved only when big relief camps began to be converted
into permanent camps after August 28 and toilets were constructed. On
September 5, the centre despatched a high level medical team to assess
the situation. Union health secretary Naresh Dayal said the Centre had
also mobilized six public health teams and 10 medical teams which would
be sent when the state demands. Till September 10, Bihar had not asked
for these medical teams. “The state had demanded 37 drugs of which 20
have been procured while orders have been placed for the remaining 17.
We are also going to send Japanese encephalitis vaccines procured from
China,” Dayal added.
Twenty million chlorine tablets for water purification and 0.63 million
doses of measles vaccine had also been despatched to the state capital
Patna, informed Dayal. He added that fogging machines and disposable
syringes were being procured to prevent an outbreak of vector-borne
diseases.
Though no cases of measles and Japanese encephalitis were reported by
the first week of September, diarrhoea and dehydration were widespread.
Supaul’s Deputy Collector (administration) Rameshwar Prasad, who is
manning Bais RD camp on the eastern canal of the barrage, confirmed
rising cases of diarrhoea in flooded areas. “But diarrhoea deaths don’t
reflect in the Bihar government’s statistics,” said Chandrashekhar of
Gramsheel.
Kamlesh Prasad Singh of Birpur who had stayed at the Bais RD camp for
eight days, said there were only two doctors posted for about 2,000
families in the camp. People were falling ill because of inadequate
drinking water facilities.
When dte visited relief camps pregnant women were delivering without
medical help (see: Delivery in floods). Some delivered stillborn
babies. There were medicines but no doctors. Social activist Medha
Patkar had to fight for the treatment of a pregnant woman who delivered
a stillborn baby at Saharsa Sadar Hospital. “Newborn babies are at the
mercy of God. Not a single doctor has visited them. My wife is writhing
in pain,” said Birender Narayan Singh at the Banmankhi relief camp.
Aid is trickling in from states and humanitarian agencies. Gujarat and
Andhra Pradesh have despatched ambulances. Three mobile medical units
moved in from Jharkhand, while two others were sent from Assam. The
Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation has chipped in with
infant food. The Indian Red Cross Society has supplied material of
daily requirement. In collaboration with Nestle it also provided Maggi
noodles for relief camps, which raised some eyebrows.
Amid the tragedy, political blame game raged on. Union Railway Minister
Lalu Prasad Yadav criticized Bihar for not providing enough rescue and
relief to the people. Kumar in turn accused Lalu of bullying officials.
“He is scolding and forcing senior officials to set up relief camps in
Patna. He’s also hampering relief work by visiting flood-affected areas
and creating chaos,” he said.
A tough challenge
“There are problems but these will be sorted out,” said Deputy Chief
Minister Sushil Kumar Modi. The state government has chalked out a
three-phase strategy of relief, resettlement and rehabilitation. The
second phase involves converting mega camps into permanent camps for at
least six months. In the third phase Bihar, with Centre’s help, will
distribute seeds and rebuild irrigation facilities. On September 7, the
Bihar government said that the stranded had been evacuated and phase II
of relief operations would begin.
It is easier said than done. Civil society organizations feel there
should be guidelines for shelter, health, water, sanitation, hygiene,
community kitchen and telecom connectivity. “Diseases will become a
major challenge as soon as the water recedes. There will also be
waterlogging,” says Eklavya Prasad of Megh Pyne Abhiyan, a network of
organizations working on water-related issues in Bihar. It will take at
least one month for water to completely recede.
The state Disaster Management Department is fearing that once the water
dries up, it will throw up cattle corpses. “The threat of epidemic
looms large and the army, along with the disaster management force,
will have to work for another month to complete phase II. We have
pleaded to corporate houses to provide galvanized iron sheets for
making camps,” said Nitish Kumar.
Social organizations and donors are sending food material, cloth,
medicine and cash but there is no sign of epidemic-fighting material.
“There is a dire need for firewood to bury or cremate bodies. Procuring
firewood locally is impossible, so we will have to transport it. But
helicopters are still busy in transporting relief material to the
camps. Around 5,000 km of roads have been damaged, so transporting
firewood will time-consuming. In a week epidemic is likely,” said a
government official.
Social workers like Kavindra Kumar Pandey of the Patna-based Centre for
World Solidarity says once water recedes, there would be an urgent need
for rehabilitation. “There should be a trauma centre in every relief
camp. Special care should be taken of young women, adolescent girls,
widows and infants since human trafficking surges after such
disasters,” says Pandey.
The other challenge will be locating the missing. The state government
has announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to relatives for every loss
of life. Officially, the compensation should reach the victims within a
month but there is a catch. “Most of the bodies would have been swept
away in floods. There are many who do not know if their missing
relatives are dead or alive,” says Jitender Kumar, member of a
Sitamarhi-based NGO Navjagriti that works with the flood-affected.
The chief minister claimed 300,000 people were in relief camps. Mass
exodus of families has left behind 900 ghost villages. Overcoming loss
of crops and cattle, repair of roads and rehabilitation of three
million flood-affected will require a huge effort and funds. Unofficial
estimates claim Bihar’s development has been set back by five years and
more than Rs 5,000 crore are required to rebuild the devastated areas.
The Bihar government had requested the Centre for Rs 3,000 crore but
got Rs 1,010 crore.
Nitish Kumar has promised that each girl child born in relief camps
would be given Rs 11,000 and a boy, Rs 10,000. It is welcome. But what
about the emotional scars suffered by three million people?
Spate of neglect
The authorities knew of the impending disaster
The Kosi breach was not something the Bihar and Union governments were
unaware of. Official sources reveal that both governments may have
known about the weak point in embankment in Kusaha, as early as August
5.
Every year before the onset of monsoons, engineers of the state Water
Resources Department carry out anti-erosion work, where weak spots in
the embankments are identified and repaired. Once the monsoon sets in,
the engineers have to monitor the embankment and see if any fresh area
is getting eroded, explains an official of the department.
Anti-erosion work this year was completed by June 12 in accordance with
the Kosi High Level Committee’s recommendations made on October 27 last
year. The committee, a multilateral body with members from India and
Nepal, had recommended repair of spurs at nine places on the eastern
embankment, including the 12.10 km and 12. 90 km marks. Bihar
government sent a project completion report to the Union government in
the second week of June. About Rs 1.90 lakh was provided for the repair
of the 12.10 km point, which is less, said the official.
In the third week of June the department reviewed the anti-erosion work
and knew that 12.10 km point was the weakest link in the embankment.
Officially, the flood protection work on the embankment started on
August 5. On observing an erosion at the point, chief engineer of the
Kosi project—that monitors the barrage, embankments and canals—E
Satyanarayanan, who was stationed in Birpur, Supaul, sent a message to
Kosi Liaision Officer Arun Kumar Singh in Kathmandu, on August 5. Singh
was on leave.
Satyanarayanan claimed that between August 9 and August 17, a day
before the breaching of the embankment, he had sent four more emergency
messages to the state government over the possibility of breach at
location 12.10. First letter was faxed on August 9, second on August
14, third on August 15, and when he got no response, he sent a
telegram. The fax connection at Kumar’s office was disconnected due to
non-payment of bills. Even the ISD connection at the Birpur office was
withdrawn because phone bills were not cleared. So it seems the chief
engineer’s missives were not received.
Yet the Bihar government probably knew of the erosion, for the state
Water Resources Department sent the chief engineer of Birpur, along
with a former engineer of the department, Brijnandan Prasad, to asses
the situation and take necessary measures on August 16, according to a
source in the department. The department was also in touch with the
Indian embassy in Nepal for providing security to the contractor who
was repairing the breach. Finally, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar called
up External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to persuade the Nepalese
government to help repair the damaged embankment.
Official documents in possession of dte reveal that the Bihar
government was receiving conflicting reports about the weakening of the
eastern embankment. The Central Flood Control Room in its bulletins on
August 16 and 17 said, “All the embankments under the Water Resources
Department are safe”. In fact, the state department prepared an interim
report on August 16, which said the flood situation was under control.
On September 7, Nitish Kumar said he was not aware of the gravity of
the situation as his Water Resources Department had told him that the
flood was of a regular kind. However, a senior official of the
department said the chief minister was aware of the situation by August
17.
When the external affairs ministry and the Indian embassy in Nepal
failed to persuade the Nepalese administration to provide security,
Kumar called a political friend who was present at the swearing-in
ceremony of Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Parchanda). He
requested his friend to apprise Parchanda of the situation, according
to the official. After the ceremony Parchanda gave the orders to give
security to the Bihar engineers.
Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, however, claimed that the
chief minister had written to Mukherjee on August 19, and that the
centre was informed of weak embankment on August 5. “We requested the
centre to hold talks with Nepal but were told that since there was no
government there it would be difficult to communicate,” Modi said.
The centre accused the state of neglect. Jai Prakash Yadav, minister of
state for water resources, told DTE, “The maintenance and repair work
of the Kosi barrage was to be completed by April 15. The state
government was in deep slumber till June to prepare an estimate of cost
of maintenance work.”
Whoever may have been responsible, the embankment gave way. On August
18, the Central Flood Control Room in a letter informed the state
government that spurs protecting embankments had been breaching at
12.10 and 12.90 km for the past few days. “The regional engineer was
trying to mend the damage. On the night of August 17, unsocial elements
whisked away labourers and officials of the department, resulting in
the breach. Flood control material that was rushed could not reach the
breach site because of stampede created by Nepalese locals. It has
resulted in the leaking of water towards Birpur,” stated the letter.
According to a former chief engineer posted at Birpur, the relationship
between the engineer and the Nepalese contractors and labourers is
difficult to manage. “Kosi Barrage is the only development project in
that area, so there is a lot of pressure from both local contractors
and labourers,” he said. A source at the barrage said the Bihar
government had not paid about 2,000 labourers. Durgananda Jha, a
contractor based in Hanuman Nagar, the barrage site, said he was not
paid any money for a work on embankment in 1998.
Many officials, however, suspect the security threat was a last-minute
excuse rustled up by the state Water Resources Department to escape
blame. The Bihar government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the
breach, which will have to submit its report in six months. At present,
the bigger worry is: when will the breach get repaired? Swollen by the
retreating monsoon, the Kosi floods again in mid-October.
And irregularities continue
According to officials manning the Kosi barrage, the repair work was
shoddy. All this while the breach was expanding. The 400 m breach at
12.10 km point extended up to 1.7 km by August 28.
The state government set up the Kosi Breach Closure Advisory Team of
engineers on August 28, which found massive irregularities during its
visit to the breach site on August 31. In its report, the team
mentioned that the progress of armouring cut ends (the eroding end) was
unsatisfactory and adequate boulders were not dropped at the site to
control the breach. “Only two truckloads of boulders were unloaded. We
were apprised that 20 truckloads have been dropped,” the report stated.
The report also revealed absence of high-capacity boats on the site to
deliver crates and sandbags to the northern side of the embankment.
“Low power boats cannot move in the high spate of the river,” it
mentioned. The report recommended that the state government should
initiate work on war-footing and urgently procure equipment. The team
also called for completing the repair work before October.
On September 3, when dte visited the breach site, work was on at a
snail's pace. Site engineer Roshan Sharma of Hindustan Steel
Construction Company, entrusted with repair of the breach, informed
that they had started work on August 30. He said almost 50 trucks had
delivered nylon crates to the site. A crate contains close to 25 nylon
bags containing sand, which are put in a nylon mesh and dropped to
protect the cut ends. The crates are covered with boulders to arrest
erosion. However, the site had far fewer than 125,000 bags as the
engineer had claimed.
Will the people again pay the price for governments' apathy or will
governments learn lessons from the tragedy, only time will tell.
Not excess water, but neglected embankment caused the flood
India has blamed the previous seven breaches on the Kosi embankment on
Nepal releasing water from the barrage at Bhimnagar, even though Nepal
has no control over the sluice gates. All the earlier breaches had
occurred downstream of the barrage.
But this year the breach happened upstream of the barrage and the flow
was less than what normally is during floods. So what caused the flood
this time?
It is a clear indication of lack of maintenance of the embankment, says
D K Mishra, water expert and former Bihar engineer, who has been
studying the Kosi since 1984.
India is responsible for the upkeep of the embankment and the barrage
on the Kosi in Nepal, under the Indo-Nepal Kosi treaty of 1954. “No one
is talking about the silt load and the impact it could have on the
embankment. The Kosi has an annual silt load of 94,400 acre feet. The
embankment, which was build to hold 0. 95 million cusecs of water, gave
way when water was less than 0.14 million cusecs,” says Mishra.
The day the breach occurred, the water in the Kosi was 0.134 million
cusecs at the breach point, while usually the river has 0.4 million
cusecs during floods, according to Bihar’s Water Resources Department.
Anup Upadhyay, spokesperson for Nepal’s Water Resources Department,
said, “This is not a natural disaster as India is making it out to be.
They did not carry out the repair work on the barrage and the
embankment on time.” Nepal’s Prime Minister Parchanda said the Kosi
treaty that invests the entire responsibility of design, construction,
operation and management of the Kosi project for 199 years in Indian
hands, was “a historic blunder”.
Former water resources minister of Nepal, Dipak Gyawali, told a
newspaper that “the Kosi treaty is not right for managing this kind of
trans-boundary river system”. Gyawali said it left Nepal “absolutely no
room to do anything except allow India to quarry all the boulders”. In
case it senses an emergency to repair embankments, Nepal can only
contact the Bihar government.
According to Upadhyay, Nepal had been informing the Bihar government
for long that the embankment needed repair. “The Indian engineers who
were supposed to come in the lean season, that is winters, did not come
then. The Kosi treaty specifies it is the Indian government that
investigates and estimates the charges. The problem of maintenance has
been there for long and perhaps since the maintenance cost was too
high, the Bihar government did not take any step,” he said.
In the past Bihar has conveniently blamed “not just the Nepalese
government and the Maoists, but also rats and foxes for breaches in
embankment,” says Mishra. “The allegation that Nepal could have
released water from the barrage is also wrong, since it is the
engineers from Bihar who are posted at the barrage and are responsible
for managing the sluice gates,” says Anupam Mishra, a Gandhian and an
environmental activist.
Wrong course
Building embankments and the barrage, experts say, not only reduced
Nepal to a bystander, it was also not the right response to curb floods
in the turbulent Kosi. “The river flows down very steep peaks of the
Himalayas, has a lot of current and carries a lot of sediments. It will
not be wise to try contain the river either through embankments or a
high dam as proposed at Barahkshetra in 1947,” explains Anupam Mishra.
He suggests a simple solution of investing in boats and training
fishermen in rescue operations. “This region has a lot of fishermen and
boat makers,” he says.
Preliminary findings of an independent, multi-disciplinary fact-finding
team, which went to Bihar in March this year, revealed that the
government’s investment in embankments of over Rs 1,600 crore since
early 1950s has only increased the flood-prone area from 2.5 million
hectares (ha) during the pre-plan era to 6.9 million ha today. It is a
near threefold increase.
The fact-finding team comprised D K Mishra, development analyst
Sudhirendar Sharma, ecological campaigner Pandurang Hegde,
environmental researcher Gopal Krishna, river ecologist Rakesh Jaiswal
and landscape architect Laxman Singh.
“Embankments are not the solution to taming floods in Bihar. It does
not pay to tamper with the flow of a river that carries a heavy
sediment load as Kosi does. Embankments along a river can actually
result in a huge net loss in a single incident of breaching,” says
Eklavya Prasad of Megh Pyne Abhiyan.
Embankments also destroy the natural process of building deltas and
flood plains and raise the riverbed, says Prasad, adding that embanking
the Kosi has led to a rise of 2 m in its bed in the lower reaches
within 30 years of embankment construction.
In 1962, when Bihar had 160 kilometres of embankments the flood-prone
area was 2.5 million ha. In 2002, it had 3,340 km embankments and 6.9
million ha of flood-prone area, according to the fact-finding team. In
Bihar, it estimates, one million people are permanently trapped between
embankments and the Kosi. Embankments also block natural drainage
channels, resulting in water-logging that has affected eight million
people.
The team also reported that “despite the failure of embankments to
contain floods … the business of embankment construction has resumed
after a lapse of 17 years with a Rs 792 crore package to tame the
Bagmati, one of the tributaries of the Kosi. There is another proposal
to embank the tributaries of the Mahananda at an estimated cost of Rs
850 crore”. The Kosi High Level Committee has cleared the Bagmati
embankment project. The Union Ministry of Water Resources has even
presented interlinking of rivers as a possible solution to floods in
Bihar.
“Building embankments that collapse with terrifying regularity has
become a neat little money-spinning exercise, perpetuated by a nexus of
politicians, contractors and engineers,” says Prasad.
Taming the wild
On the Kosi, work has begun to repair the breach and bring the river
back to its “old” route, within the embankment. It is worth noting that
the Kosi has been changing course since 1736 and has moved westward by
120 km. “It should be understood that the river, due to its sediment
and silt load, will continuously keep changing its course. It will
change its course even if it has to break the embankment,” says D K
Mishra.
Repairing the breach is, however, an immediate requirement. But the
centre and state are giving conflicting statements on it. While the
Bihar government says it is expecting to complete the work by March,
Secretary for Water Resources U N Panjiar says the work of plugging the
breach would be complete before October.
“Right now we are only trying to freeze the ends to prevent further
breach in the embankment. The breach will be plugged once the flow of
the river reduces. That will happen only after November,” said Pratyaya
Amrit, additional commissioner, Department of Disaster Management,
Bihar.
Will the breach affect areas downstream of the flooded region? “There
is not much impact on either West Bengal or Farakka barrage on the
Ganga, since it is the normal flow of water. The water level hasn’t
risen in the Ganga. So there is no problem at present,” says Panjiar.
The Kosi has joined the Ganga at Kursaila in Bihar.
Jaya Mitra, who has written on the Ganga and the Farakka barrage,
however, warns that the eastward movement of the Ganga near Rajmahal
hills due to sedimentation of its bed and the silting of the Farakka
barrage can create trouble in the future.
Embankment indicted
Findings of the fact-finding team that studied floods in Bihar:
1. Embanking the Kosi has prevented the Kosi’s annual estimated silt
load of 92.5 million cubic metres from spreading and improving soil
fertility
2. Deposition of silt has increased the riverbed by up to 4 m
3. The raised bed of the river has obstructed the drainage from
entering the river course, creating permanent waterlogging in 8,360 sq
km
4. Embankments have contributed to an increase in flood-prone area in
the state from 2.5 million ha in the 1950s to 6.9 million ha
5. People living within embankments are not mentioned in government
records
Kosi breaches
1963: At eastern embankment at
Dalwa in Nepal
1968: At western embankment at
Jamalpur
1971: Collapse of Bhatania
Approach Bund in Supaul
1980: In the eastern embankment
in Saharsa.
1984: In the eastern embankment
at Navhatta in Saharsa
1987: In the western embankment
at Samani and Ghonghepur in Saharsa
1991: In the western embankment
at Joginia
Reportage by Alok Gupta from Purnia, Araria, Saharsa, Madhepura and
Patna; Arnab Pratim Dutta from Supaul and Bhimnagar in Nepal; and Savvy
Soumya Misra
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/cover.asp?foldername=20080930&filename=news&sid=23&page=
1&sec_id=9&p=1
Copyright
© Society for Environmental Communications.
At
night they took it out and the whole family chewed the swollen rice.
They survived but by the time they were rescued they were
diarrhoea-ridden.