Officials and agencies in Uttar Pradesh , Bihar and Uttarakhand were on high alert and started evacuating people from vulnerable areas in the border districts of these states following a flash flood upstream, in Nepal ’s Bhote Koshi River in Rusuwa district that killed at least 160 people and left hundreds of tourists, including 133 Indians missing.
In Bihar, the government has ordered evacuation of people living in low lying impact areas in five districts — West Champaran, East Champaran, Gopalganj, Sapaul and Muzaffarpur — as thousands of cusecs of additional water flow is expected. Later in the day, Union home minister Amit Shah spoke with Choudhary about the rescue operations. West Champaran magistrate Taranjot Singh said all field formations have been activated in wake of water level rising Devghat in Nepal, about 80 km from Valmikinagar. At the Devghat gauge site on the Narayani in Nepal the water level stood at 4.77 metres—well below the warning level of 7.30 metres and the danger mark of nine metres. Discharge at the barrage rose steadily through the day from around 86,000 cusecs in the morning to about 144,800 cusecs by 4 pm. Gopalganj magistrate Sameer Saurabh said a 30-member NDRF team and a team of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) were at Chawahi near Gopalganj, from where families living in low-lying areas were being evacuated.
Bihar chief minister Samrat Choudhary said a close watch is being kept on the possibility of a rise in water level in the Gandak in view of the floods in Nepal. He said a committee under the chief secretary and the police chief has been formed to watch the situation. “If necessary, I will also visit Valmiki Nagar to assess the situation,” Choudhary said in Patna. Deputy chief minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, who holds the WRD portfolio, said in a video message that the next five hours would be critical and urged people to stay alert but calm, noting that the administration was fully prepared. Officials said Shah assured Choudhary of all possible assistance from the Centre to tackle the potential crisis. The official said that teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were being mobilised to handle any emergency.
