Bihar frantically tried to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from six districts fearing a 10 to 12-metre high wall of water to come sweeping down the Kosi river from Nepal, where a landslide early Saturday blocked Sun Koshi river.
Late afternoon, a team from the Nepali Army conducted two controlled explosions in the blocked area enabling the accumulated water, which had formed a huge lake, to flow downstream.
Bihar braced for the gushing waters even as it conducted a massive evacuation of people living along the Kosi embankment in Supaul, Saharsa, Madhepura, Madhubani, Purnia and Darbhanga districts.
Survivors of a landslide in northeastern Nepal receives medical treatment at a hospital in Kathmandu. (AFP Photo)
Authorities fear the water wall will flow into India late at night or early Sunday. The state water resources department lifted all the 56 gates of the Birpur Kosi barrage to deflect the pressure of the gushing water.
Nepal had alerted Bihar after the landslide, which killed eight people and displaced hundreds.
Read: 8 dead as landslide hits Nepal, sparking flood fears
All eyes will be on the volume of onrushing water reaching the Birpur Kosi barrage. An expert said if water above 250,000 cusec (cubic foot per second) were discharged, it would be disastrous.
The feared water wall could bring much more water than the manageable upper limit of 250,000 cusec.
Despite the evacuation efforts, Bihar feared the worst.
State water resources department minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary said, "Once the blockage is cleared, the water will come down gushing into the Bihar plains and may damage our embankments.” He said despite all the efforts, there was little to do, “but pray”.
The state is keeping its fingers crossed that a repeat of the Kosi disaster of 2008 does not happen.
A breach in Kosi embankment at Kushaha in Nepal on August 18, 2008, had resulted in one of the most disastrous floods in Bihar.
The river had changed its course, killing hundreds of people and displacing nearly three million. The incident also wreaked havoc in more than 800,000 acres of cropland.
Bihar principal secretary, disaster management department (DMD), Vyasji, described the current situation as "most alarming".
He did not rule out the possibility of imminent flood in the six districts, with Supaul facing the brunt of devastation.
About 200,000 people in about 100 villages of Mahisi and Nauhatta blocks between the Kosi eastern embankment face imminent danger and have to move out.
Bihar has rushed state and national disaster response forces from Purnia, Darbhanga and Patna to the six districts.
Manish Ranjan, NDRF commandant, IX battalion, said, "We have already dispatched eight fully equipped teams of 45 persons each to the affected areas. I am also on way to personally monitor and supervise the NDRF operation.
“NDRF personnel, apart from relief and rescue, are also appealing to local people on the public address system to shift to safer places in view of the impending disaster.”
The state disaster management department has advised divisional commissioners and district magistrates to set up relief camps for shifting the maximum number of people living within the Kosi embankments, apart from other affected people.
A round-the-clock emergency operation centre has started functioning in DMD state headquarters.
How bad is the landslide in Nepal
According to reports, the blockade caused by the landslide in Sindhupalchowk district, 120 km east of Kathmandu, was nearly 40-metre high and the lake formed by the accumulated water spread over an area of nearly four km.
The explosions were triggered because there was the possibility of even more water accumulating. “The blasts have allowed the water to flow and it will not increase,” Srikamal Dwivedi, a Nepal government official told news website Setopati.
(With inputs from Binod Dubey)
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