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Saturday, Sep 06, 2008
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When Kosi did the unexpected

Manisha Jha and Sandeep Dikshit

PHOTOS: AFP

HANDS THAT SPEAK: Flood-affected people reach out for food packets distributed by a relief agency at Raghunathpur in Bihar's Madhepura district on Friday. Rescue workers have taken over 8 lakh people to safety, but tens of thousands are still believed to be trapped.

PURNIA: The blame game for the misery being faced by the lakhs of people of Bihar is on. Politicians are charging each other with negligence, leading to the bursting of the dam over the Kosi in Nepal, just across the border. The war of words is being fought not just in Delhi and Patna, but even in the apathetically-managed relief camps that political parties have set up.

But people in the know say it is not just a simple case of the Kosi changing its course. The inundation can also not be termed a flood. True, the Kosi is notorious for changing its course since its recorded history from the mid-eighteenth century. The last time it swung away from the existing course was over 60 years ago. But each time, the movement was from west to east. That is, further away from the border with West Bengal and a little more into the heartland of north Bihar or Mithilanchal as it is called.

This time when the embankment at Kusaha in Nepal gave way, the waters for the first time moved west. There was no course for the three-km-long vast sheet of water to fall into. It simply followed every available shallow channel in the gradually sloping terrain. Then when these pathways proved inadequate, it spread itself across villages and districts on its way to the Ganga that has been Kosi’s final destination, irrespective of the courses it has charted out over the centuries.

People wait atop a building at Raghunathpur for rescuers.

And now, a bigger threat looms. Some 10 km downstream from the breached Kusaha is the Bhimnagar barrage. Kosi, like several other tributaries that flow into the Ganga and other rivers of U.P. and Bihar, tends to swell in October. It is then that the adequacy of the Bhimnagar barrage will be tested.

The Kosi is being described as the river of sorrow. That is hardly the case. All rivers in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and further downstream in West Bengal tend to overflow their banks. A common sight on the train from Patna to Begusarai is the unending miles of water during this season with the cones of submerged power transmission towers providing the only optical relief.

It is the same with the Kosi, as also the Mahananda, Ghagra, Gandak, Gomti and several others flowing into the Ganges.

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