Curse of Kosi: Man made Calamities and Disaster Management

[Palash]

Curse of Kosi: Man made Calamities and Disaster Management

Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 56

Palash Biswas
http://troubledgalaxydetroyeddreams.blogspot.com/

Bihar floods: A man-made disaster

The devastating floods in Bihar, caused by a breach in the Kosi
barrage, have left many dead and more than 30 lakhs displaced. But the
extent of the floods could have been lessened had the administration
been alert to the impending tragedy..

http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=140554
Koshi River
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The Kosi River, called Koshi in Nepal (Nepali: कोशी नदी), is a
transboundary river between Nepal and India, and is one of the largest
tributaries of the Ganga. The river, along with its tributaries,
drains a total area of 69,300 km2 (26,800 sq mi) up to its confluence
with the Ganga in India (29,400 km2/11,400 sq mi in China, 30,700
km2/11,900 sq mi in Nepal and 9,200 km2/3,600 sq mi in India). The
watershed also includes part of Tibet, such as the Mount Everest
region, and the eastern third of Nepal. The river basin is surrounded
by the ridges separating it from the Brahmaputra in the north, the
Gandaki in the west, the Mahananda in the east, and by the Ganga in
the south. The river is joined by major tributaries, approximately 48
km (30 mi) north of the Indo-Nepal border, breaking into more than
twelve distinct channels with shifting courses due to flooding.[1][2]
Kamlā, Bāghmati (Kareh) and Budhi Gandak are major tributaries of
Koshi in India, besides minor tributaries like Bhutahi Balān.[3][4]
Over the last 250 years, the Kosi River has shifted its course over
120 kilometres (75 mi) from east to west.[5] and the unstable nature
of the river is attributed to the heavy silt which it carries during
the monsoon season. Flooding in India has extreme effects. India is
second in the world after Bangladesh in deaths due to flooding,
accounting for one fifth of global flooding deaths. The Kosi River
(The Sorrow of Bihar) is one of two major tributaries, the other river
being Gandak, draining the plains of north Bihar, the most flood-prone
area of India[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koshi_River




BBC News Army Engineers to help repair barrage on Kosi
SINDH TODAY, Pakistan - 2 hours ago
‘Regarding the repair of the Bheem Barrage on river Kosi where the
breach took place, the Centre has offered the help of Army Engineers
and the BRO,’ said ...
Bihar govt's negligent attitude responsible for floods: Minister
Business Standard
SC declines hearing on PIL for repair of Kosi river embankment
Indlaw.com
Indian flood victims hunker down in camps International Herald Tribune
Reuters - Thaindian.com
all 1,921 news articles »

TopNews Don't blame Nepal but Bihar govt for flood: Lalu
Economic Times, India - 47 minutes ago
In the backdrop of media reports that Nepal released thousands of
cusecs of water in Kosi, he said it was the state's unpreparedness to
tackle the flood ...
Kosi will become an election issue: Lalu Zee News
CM asks Lalu not to demoralize officials Times of India
Lalu prays to Kosi to curb its destructive powers IBNLive.com
The Statesman - Press Trust of India
all 193 news articles »


Chipko movement
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Villagers surrounding a tree to stop them from being felled
The Chipko movement (literally "to stick" in Hindi) was a group of
female peasants in the Uttaranchal region of India who acted to
prevent the cutting of trees and reclaim their traditional forest
rights that were threatened by the contractor system of the state
Forest Department. The movement began in Chamoli district in 1973 and
spread throughout the Uttaranchal Himalayas by the end of the decade.
In Tehri district, Chipko activists would go on to protest limestone
mining in the Dehra Dun hills in the 1980s as well as the Tehri dam,
before founding the Beej Bachao Andolan or Save the Seeds movement
that continues to the present day. In Kumaon region, Chipko took on a
more radical hue, combining with the general movement for a separate
Uttaranchal state.[1]

One of Chipko's most salient features was the mass participation of
women villagers.[2] As the backbone of Uttaranchal's agrarian economy,
women were most directly affected by environmental degradation and
deforestation, and thus connected the issues most easily. How much
this participation impacted or derived from the ideology of Chipko,
has been fiercely debated in academic circles.[3] Despite this, both
female and male activists did play pivotal roles in the movement
including Gaura Devi, Sudesha Devi, Bachni Devi, Chandi Prasad Bhatt,
Sundarlal Bahuguna, Govind Singh Rawat, Dhoom Singh Negi and Shamsher
Singh Bisht.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipko_movement

Kosi's tragedy: Blunder after blunder



Himanshu Thakkar
September 01, 2008
The Kosi river basin in Bihar is facing its biggest ever flood
disaster ever, and that disaster has come about completely due to the
neglect of the Government of India and the government of Bihar. It is
a manmade disaster which could have been avoided.
Amidst the din of 'national calamity, catastrophe and river changing
course', about two million people are facing forced submergence and
displacement. The governments of India and Bihar are going about the
relief work as if it is a favour they are doing for the people. That
favour is being doled out in a totally haphazard, unplanned, callous
way.

For immediate relief it is important that those being brought out from
the waterlogged areas be given cooked food for at least two days.
There should be planned settlements for such people, with arrangements
for shelter, fuel, fodder, medicines, hygiene etc, as they are likely
to have to stay at these places for up to two months. The affected
people need not be considered as victims as is the case now, but
should be involved in the whole exercise. Two million people cannot be
resettled by outsiders. And in the comparatively lax law and order
situation of Bihar, the responsibility of the state and the Centre
increases considerably in ensuring dignified relief and resettlement.

In this effort, another very important aspect seems to be totally
ignored. Most (about 85 per cent) of the 1.5 lakh cusecs (cubic feet
per second) of Kosi water is flowing through the breach in the
embankment that started with a small, few metres-wide breach on the
eastern side, 12.9 km upstream of the barrage in the afternoon of
August 18. This water is flowing through three of the 15 old streams
of the Kosi river, namely Sursar, Mirchaiya and Belhi, says Dinesh
Kumar Mishra, possibly the most well-informed person in India on Bihar
floods, from his camp at Khagaria. This water is entering an area that
does not have the capacity drain so much water

http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/01guest.htm




The Centre has accused Nitish Kumar government of not sending a scheme
for works to be executed on the damaged dams on the Nepal section of
the Kosi river. But t The Centre has assured all possible assistance
to the Bihar government in the wake of the ongoing flood relief and
rescue operations and a high level Central team has offered the help
of Army engineers and the Border Roads Organisation for repair of the
Bheem barrage on river Kosi where the breach took place.

Too late!

Ex chief minister of Bihar, the high profile railway Minister of India
also sheds crocodile Tears in sympathy and vomits venom against the
government of Bihar! As if the center has no responsibility at all.

In Bengal, People may remember the words of the Fire Brand Opposition
Leader Ms Mamata Bannerjee that Floods in Bengal are Man Made!

Given the fact the Kosi has a track record of flowing in excess of 9
lakh cusecs, the Bihar government is indeed worried that a monumental
effort will have to be put in to rescue the people. “We will have to
rescue more than 10 lakh people in relief camps. And we will have to
keep them for more than 6 months as it will take time to plug the
breach. More significantly, the flow of the Kosi will have to shift to
its original course and all this will take time,” the chief minister
said.

At least 5 districts of North Bihar including Supaul and Madhepura are
in the spate of Kosi river following the breach in its eastern afflux
embankment at Kusaha in Nepal . The breach was caused on 18 August but
the breach ever since has been widening under the pressure of the
turbulent Kosi.. Obviously, the river has opened a new channel and
meandering on a course with the potential to cause incalculable damage
to human population.


Meanwhile, The flood situation in Assam continued to be critical on
Wednesday with Brahmaputra river and its tributaries creating havoc in
the state, claiming 15 lives and rendering several thousands homeless.
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi accompanied by senior officials made an
aerial survey of Majuli, Asia's largest river island, which submerged
under the flood waters, official sources said on Wednesday.

It is just the beginning!

We are so habitual to see and bypass the calamities every year. UP,
Bihar, Bengal, Assam and elsewhere, the Indigenous Communities have to
face flood every year. The Capital of India is not spared also.

A lot of people say its God’s doing, but God is no more responsible
for the destruction caused by earthquakes, flooding or tornados than a
weatherman is responsible for the damage done by a typhoon that he
forecasts. Many defenseless people live in harm’s way, in places where
natural or man-made disasters are very likely to strike. Some
disasters are at least partially man-made.
Take for example the residents of New Orleans, the hurricane that
flooded the city, or the mudslides of Venezuela and others, natural
things such as wind and rain turned deadly largely because of human
environmental mistakes, shoddy engineering, flawed planning and
unheeded warnings.
Can we blame God for that? Greedy humans must bear some of the blame
for the calamities that people experience.


Every time the floods kill the Ingenious Communities and the majority
people living under poverty Line!

The Human scape of Kosi Area is to be analysed to understand the
phenomenon. Just for a clue, we may witness the Slums in Kolkata, New
Delhi and Mumbai are always inundated! Yes, the Posh areas are also
effected. But it is the marginal, poor and indigenous class which is
devastated losing life, livelihood and production system.

Just understand the timing! It is Festival Time in India. Ramdan is
underway. Puja Countdown has just begun. It has to be followed by
Diwali and Ganapati utsav. This is shopping time and the indigenous
communities are out of Market, out of production, out of livelihood.
They have to be rescued. They have to be sheltered and fed on. It is
the same chronology every year!

They brand it as Natural Calamity!

Is it?

Calamityis defined well.

An event that brings terrible loss, lasting distress, or severe
affliction; a disaster: A hurricane would be a calamity for this low-
lying coastal region!

Dire distress resulting from loss or tragedy!

Noun 1. calamity - an event resulting in great loss and misfortune;
"the whole city was affected by the irremediable calamity"; "the
earthquake was a disaster"
catastrophe, tragedy, cataclysm, disaster
misfortune, bad luck - unnecessary and unforeseen trouble resulting
from an unfortunate event
act of God, force majeure, inevitable accident, unavoidable casualty,
vis major - a natural and unavoidable catastrophe that interrupts the
expected course of events; "he discovered that his house was not
insured against acts of God"
apocalypse - a cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the ruling
powers of evil
famine - a severe shortage of food (as through crop failure) resulting
in violent hunger and starvation and death
kiss of death - something that is ruinous; "if this were known it
would be the kiss of death for my political career"
meltdown - a disaster comparable to a nuclear meltdown; "there is
little likelihood of a meltdown comparable to the American banking
collapse in March 1933"
plague - any large scale calamity (especially when thought to be sent
by God)
visitation - any disaster or catastrophe; "a visitation of the plague"
tidal wave - an unusual (and often destructive) rise of water along
the seashore caused by a storm or a combination of wind and high tide
tsunami - a cataclysm resulting from a destructive sea wave caused by
an earthquake or volcanic eruption; "a colossal tsunami destroyed the
Minoan civilization in minutes"

“Water shortage is one of the most pressing problems of the country as
our resources are fast depleting. Besides, there is a large-scale
pollution of water resources which needs to be checked. We must learn
to keep our air, water and soil clean.” This was stated by
environmentalist and Chipko Movement exponent Sunderlal Bahuguna at
Guru Nanak Dev University during the Bhagat Puran Singh Memorial
National Seminar, jointly organised by the All India Pingalwara
Charitable Society and the University.
Bahuguna said adequate steps should be taken for recharging the
groundwater. He also laid emphasis on checking the population
explosion. “If steps are not taken to check the decreasing level of
the water table, Punjab and other states would suffer,” said
Bahuguna.


We know the rivers very well. We know the landscape. We know the Human
scape.

It is quite Nonsense to blame the Nature!

Nature has it`s own law. Nature never breaks it`s laws! Day and Night,
BIO Cycle, Weather and season, Eclipses, Tides .. everything continue
mathematically accurate. So that NASA is capable to launch Space
dominance Campaign. We may calculate the Time and Distance and we may
get them accordingly. So we dream to colonise Moon and Mars!

Just take the Earth Quake prone Japan!

Just consider the cases of Hurricanes, Twister, Tornado in Americas!


How do they manage the Disaster there?

How do they execute Evacuation?

How do they successfully complete Rescue Operation ?

We have the Man Power.

We have the Technology!

We have the resources!

We have the Administrative network from Centre to the Panchayat!

We have also a system of Disaster management!

But everything fails!

I dare to claim that the failure is deliberate and it benefits the
Ruling Hegemony and the market forces. Thus, the genuine attempt to
address the calamities are absent every time!

We are so called civilised people who tend to disturb the Nature! We
are safe in our heaven! Only the Poor and the Indigenous People have
to encounter the Fury of nature!

Who created the Big dams?

Who are responsible for Deforestation all over the Himalayan region
causing Land Slide and Avalanches, Floods and Disaster!

We addressed the issues during seventies with Chipko Movement led by
Sunderlal Bahuguna! Ladies of Chamoli in Uttarkhand introduced chipko,
the most relevant Ecological movement in India! We protested the Tehri
dam and opposed every attempt to disturb the natural flow of the
rivers!

In 1978, India suffered heavily while Floods innundated the Palins
upto ganga sagar just because the natural flow of the Ganges was
blocked in Gangotri. I had been there and reported for Dharmayug!

They created Big Dams without considering the climate, weather,
ecology, human scape..anything. Narmada Bachao Andolan is trying its
best. But the state power is always used against the indigenous people
uprooting and killing them. Since Bhakhra Nangal and Rihand dam the
story continues!

They create the Big Dams and Embankment without caring to manage them
properly. Experts and Engineers base in the Capital cities enjoying
the Time and Place in every possible ways. They are often tempted to
create artificial calamities to defend the interest of the Ruling
class and the Market forces. On the other hand , the dams and
embankments have to be overseen by manual labour stripped off
technical expertise!

We are Super Power to be! We are shining! We claim to be the developed
nationality. But we have to get the goal with the annihilation and
mass displacement of the Indigenous communities. We have to sell the
Natural Resources. We handover everything! The society with inherent
inequality and injustice manipulates the Politics to get expected
favour and results!

Have you read Phanishwar Nath RENU? Maila Aanchal!

Phanishwar Nath 'Renu'
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Phanishwar Nath 'Renu' (???????? ??? ????) (March 4, 1921 – April 11,
1977) was one of the greatest writers of modern Hindi literature in
the post-Premchand era. He is the author of Maila Anchal', which after
Premchand's Godan, is regarded as the most significant Hindi novel.[1]

Phanishwar Nath 'Renu' is most known for promoting the voice of the
contemporary rural India through the genre of 'Aanchalik
Upanyas' (Regional Story), and is placed amongst the pioneering Hindi
writers who brought regional voices into the mainstream Hindi
literature.

His short story Maare Gaye Gulfam was adapted into a film Teesri Kasam
by Basu Bhattacharya (produced by the poet-lyricist Shailendra) in
1966 for which he also wrote the dialogues. Later his short story
'Panchlight' (Patromax) was made into a TV short film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phanishwar_Nath_'Renu'

Maila Aanchal by Phanishwar Nath Renu
Buzz up! ShareThisMar 22 2007 | Views 1800 | Comments (5)
Tags: Book Review Hindi
Renu's Maila Anchal is one of the finest novels ever written in Hindi.
The landscape of Bihar, the caste divide, Indian independence and
changes in its aftermath, Maithali folklores and poems, the multiple
love stories painted on a canvas with highly perceptive descriptions
of village life make it one of the most important novels written in
and about rural India.

The novel was first published in early 1950s, in the post Prem Chand
era, at a time when young, independent India was trying to redefine
its identity as a Nation. The novel is set in Bihar, and incorporates
the regional contexts and references into its theme, making it into a
perfect example of Anchalik Upanyaas (Regional Novel).

A short synopsis of the story reads as follows (I won't serve you
details or surprises, just the bare bones, no soul, no flesh):
Tehsildaar babu, by virtue of his position in administration has
acquired large tracts of land, and turned into a Zamindaar (landlord)
himself. He has a daughter by name of Kamla, who suffers from fits.
Doctor babu (Dagdar babu) has left his city life to work in these
hinterlands. This is the realm where Malaria, Kalazar and numerous
such epidemics run havoc, where people trust tantriks and pandits
(witches and priests) more than they trust medicine, where poverty
itself is the biggest disease affecting people, and besides lack of
basic amenities, people lack education and faith in government as well
as doctor himself. Based on true life story of Dr Alakh Niranjan, who
was alive (and 100 years old) in 2003, the doctor babu takes pains to
fight disease and disbelief, in his battle for making people survive
their ailments and superstitions. Kamla, who is his patient, falls in
love with him.

Lakshmi lives on the Matth (a kind of monastery), serving old Mahanth
(a priest) (a scandalous relationship). The Mahanth has a servant, who
bears all insult from his master, and eventhough he was of low birth,
is admitted into the Matth, as he is adept at playing the Khanjira (a
musical instrument). A freedom fighter, S (I forget his name), comes
in contact with Lakshmi, and is attracted to her. After Mahanth's
death, the servant assumes office with help of Lakshmi, and because of
her position, she is the butt of several people's lust, till she gives
up her position in Matth.

There are a whole bunch of characters who get involved in caste based
politics. Apart from S, who is a strict Gandhian (and makes speeches
in pure Hindi, that most villagers admire, but never understand),
there is a dwarf, who has had correspondence with Mahatma Gandhi
himself and who after Mahatma's death, wanes away like a celebrated
candle of dark hours flickers away unnoticed, once electricity
connection is restored. There are the village hooligans who are lured
by Communist party. There is division of ranks between different
castes and groups, the divisions become harsher as politics promises
power and money, and if you wonder about caste based politics, its
roots and consequences, Maila Aanchal has a perfect script for tracing
its roots. It also, in a manner of great story tellers, where the
events speaks for themselves, shed light on how Gandhi was revered in
even these remotest villages and how his death was mourned by most who
did not know what difference becoming "free" would to make to them.
For them the simile of being like a free bird means nothing, for they
are like wingless birds who know not what wonders a flight entails,
what sceneries lie beyond the horizons. The events reveal how
Gandhians and idealists lost hope and direction after Independent
India thrust itself into games of corruption and caste-based politics.
The events prescribe the socio-economic condition of the villagers,
the unequal sharing of crops, the inherited hierarchy of caste and
money, and the crux of family values.

Be it gossip or folklores, songs of tribals or cures by the Doctor; be
it drama (nautanki) enacted on stage or the Akhara fights (the
wrestling matches); be it dresses and ornaments of womenfolk or the
idealism and corruption of men; be it the bhajans (hymns) in Matth or
the lust of men who sought Lakshmi; be it the harvesting season or
description of monsoon rain; Renu presents a masterpiece where each
description comes with a perspective and perception as keen and humane
as of Tolstoy, as astute as of Maugham and Lawrence.

If Renu were an author in any other language, in other country or
tongue, he would have managed to be read and celebrated a million
times better than he is by us Hindi speaking Indians. He shares this
fate with Prem Chand, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Bachchan, Dharamveer
Bharati, and Jaishankar Prasad, to name a few. His story Maare Gaye
Gulfaam was made into a movie Teesri Kasam, though Maila Aanchal
seemed to have been ignored by our Hollywood copying Bollywood.

If I were to suggest a series of books to any Indian about his
country, I would, apart from epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata, go on
and hand this list: Anand Math by Bankim, Gora and Ghaira Bhare by
Tagore, Godan by Prem Chand, Midnight's Children by Rushdie, Maila
Anchal by Renu and Gunaahon ka Devta by Dharamveer Bharati (The titles
missing from this list (except for English fiction and Sarat Chandra)
are a measure of my own ignorance, and hence I'll be delighted to get
any recommendations).

Language flourishes when people speaking it celebrate its richness,
honor its bards, recognize the need for its evolution and admire
scholarship. Hindi as a language needs more authors like Renu. But
more important than that is the reader who can savor the delights
offered by our language. Maila Aanchal, apart from its numerous merits
in being descriptive and its range and depth of narrative, is a
celebration of spoken Hindi language, the khari boli. The language as
we hear and live it is brought to the page by Renu. While he talks
about social change, and issues closer at heart to reformists in
undertones, he also springs at us a well written marvel of the
language, freely indulging, romancing as if, with local words and
variations, and at times, openly mocking the bookish Hindi, that is
the bane of our classrooms, certain newspapers, and self-styled
authors.

By the emphasis placed on the use of highly Sanskritized, defunct
words, and due to importance of English as language of knowledge and
erudition, Hindi literature and language have suffered enormously.
Perhaps those among you who read the Russian authors or even the
classical British novelists, perhaps you will notice how our approach
to Hindi (or our Indian languages) is similar to Russians or Brits had
for their mother-tongues in comparison to French. Perhaps likewise, an
array of brilliant writers, a free dose of nationalism inspired by a
new Napolean, is what we need for our language to flourish as it
must.

While Renu waits for you to admire his contribution, I urge you to
pick Maila Aanchal, and enter his world and characters from not so
long ago, from our own land, our own country. Maybe, like always, you
will learn something new about yourselves, about us. Read it and you
will find Doctor babu, Kamla, Lakshmi, S, Mahant, Tehsildaar,
Socialists, the dwarf, the Panditji and other characters will live
etched in your memory reminding you of one and many you have known.
http://sharmavivek.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/03/maila-aanchal-by-phanishwar-nath-renu.htm

Nothing has changed in Bihar or the Maila Aanchal.

Just see the TV News coverage clippings! Renu changed his tone in
Parti Pareekatha hoping that the Big Dam would change everything and
his people would taste the fruits of freedom and development.

Nothing has changed!

It is the same landscape!

It is the smae human sacpe!

In all those villages inhibited by the poor, underclass and
untouchables, minorities, you wont get a single House to get shelter,
not even a cemented platfarm!

Bihar floods: A man-made disaster
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=140554

The devastating floods in Bihar, caused by a breach in the Kosi
barrage, have left many dead and more than 30 lakhs displaced. But the
extent of the floods could have been lessened had the administration
been alert to the impending tragedy..
BIHAR HAS been battling with horrific floods for the past 15 days.
‘Sorrow of Bihar’, Kosi river has devastated 16 districts of the
state. More than 30 lakhs people have been affected by the floods and
around a hundred lives have been lost in the water. Due to extent of
devastation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared the floods in
Bihar as ‘national calamity’. Singh also announced a Rs 1000-crore
relief package for the state. Other states of the country are also
offering relief packages to Bihar.

Government of Bihar is trying hard to provide necessary help to flood
affected people. But still people in most affected areas are
complaining of not getting adequate relief materials. Rescue and
relief operations are going on in Bihar, but it would succeed only
when the flood waters recede.

The reason behind the floods in Bihar was due to breach on Kosi river
barrage on the Indo - Nepal border. But one can’t deny human hand
behind the devastating floods in Bihar. The calamity is also the
result of negligent attitude of the Central and state government.
According to a senior official of National Disaster Management, the
barrage completed its estimated lifespan of 30 years way back in 1986.
Since then, 22 years have passed, but neither the state government nor
the Centre showed any interest in constructing a new barrage or
renovating the old one.

In 1956, the Kosi barrage came into being after a bilateral agreement
between India and Nepal. But years before its estimated lifespan of 30
years, the river started changing its course eastward. The then Bihar
government was aware of the fact, but it did not asked the Centre for
diplomatic level talks with the neighbouring country. Negligence by
Nepal towards maintenance of the Kosi barrage, which was breached two
weeks back was one of the reasons behind the floods. But Nitish Kumar-
led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government also remained silent
about the impending disaster.

Despite the flood-prone history of Bihar, the state government never
showed much interest in dealing with the situation in advance. In
fact, since the country’s Independence, the Centre never initiated
diplomatic talks with Nepal. Of course, floods occur due to natural
causes such as incessant rains, but by constructing a series of high
dams on the Indo – Nepal border the extent of floods could have been
reduced.

Fact is that the Centre or the state governments wake up only when
floods or other natural calamities comes and destroy everything. At
the time of elections, the government makes tall claims, and forgets
them with the passage of time. Such negligence of the government and
its officials is also visible in man-made structures like bridges,
flyovers, buildings, etc.

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There are several railway and road bridges across the country, which
are very old and have completed their life span. But the concerned
authorities don’t care to dismantle the old bridge or replace it with
a new one. Every now and then we come across news of falling bridges
and buildings, but no one cares about the casualty.

The unfolding tragedy in Bihar is an important lesson for the state
government and the Centre as well. Had the necessary steps been taken
on time, the 16 districts could have been saved from such devastation.
Floods in Bihar have shocked the whole nation and has raised questions
against our so-called ‘developing nation’ image. It is time for the
government to wake up, rather than play blame game with each other and
make it a political issue.



Once upon a Sankranti

http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/jan/opi-kosipast.htm


Half a century of harvests ago, the plans to control the flooding of
the Kosi river got underway. The lives of those who live within its
embankments have never been the same again; successive governments
have failed them, and the practices that brought them such misery have
remained firmly in place, notes Dinesh Mishra.

19 January 2005 - Fifty years ago on Makar Sankranti - 14 January 1955
- the first foundation stone for controlling the floods in country was
laid in the village of Bhutaha, in Bihar's Madhubani district. The
then Chief Minister of Bihar, Dr Shri Krishna Sinha, set off the plan
to control the flooding of India's most vibrant river, the Kosi. Many
decades after that beginning, it is debatable whether the embankments
on either banks served the desired purpose, or if the cost paid by the
people to achieve such flood control was justified. But there is
something else we can pay attention to now.

With the river embanked by the project, some 386 villages spread over
four districts - Saharsa, Supaul, Madhubani and Darbhanga - were
trapped within the two embankments, and the waters of the Kosi pass
over these villages every year. When the construction of the
embankments began, the people were alerted, but it was 1956 before
they understood what was going on and could raise the demand for
rehabilitation. By then, the construction of the embankments was
completed till Nirmali, some 50 kilometers south of the Indo-Nepal
border. The Government assured the entrapped people that there would
be only a marginal rise of four inches in the flood level within the
embankments. The people disputed this, pointing out that the land
around the Kosi slopes toward the west, and any rise in the flood
level would spell doom for the people trapped within the embankments.

The response to their concern was indifferent, even calculating. In a
meeting of the Kosi Control Board at Patna, on the 2nd March 1956, the
members of the Central Water Commission opposed any move to resettle
the embankment victims on the plea that that would set a bad
precedent, and that people would start demanding rehabilitation in all
such projects.

The floods of the Kosi in 1956 proved the villagers right; life within
the embankments was devastated, and there was no doubt that more of
this lay ahead in the years to come as well. Waterlogging outside the
embankments was also significant; many villages were victims of
stagnant rainwater that could not enter the river because of the
embankments. A movement to rehabilitate villages trapped within the
Kosi embankments gained momentum in 1957, but by this time the
embankments had been further extended - to Mahishi on the eastern side
and to Bhanthi on the west, both in Saharsa district. A total of 304
villages were trapped. As the resistance grew the government - at a
cost of Rs. 112 millions - prepared a rehabilitation package but later
found that this cost was disproportionate to the cost of the project
itself (Rs. 370 millions), and the plans were dropped.

Pressure from villagers continued, however. This resulted in the
announcement of a proportionate package of rehabilitation worth Rs.
21.2 millions. Deep Narain Singh, then Minister of Irrigaion in the
State, made an announcement (3rd December 1958) in the Vidhan Sabha
that,

The Government would provide land to the victims in the flood
protected area, close to the embankment,
Government would arrange land for the services like schools, roads
etc,
Rehabilitation sites will be provided with tanks, wells, tube-wells
for water supply by the Government,
House Building Grants would be made available to the victims, and
Government would ensure easy access to the fields of the farmers by
providing adequate number of boats.
Many elderly persons in the area recall that they were also promised
jobs for at least one person per family in the Kosi Project. However,
I did not find documentary evidence to substantiate this claim.

continue reading article ...

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By 1960, only 70 villages were resettled; even at that slow rate,
nonetheless, only 9 years should have been needed to ensure
rehabilitation for all the embankment victims. However, by 1972-73,
only 32,540 families of the total of about 45,000 families were given
the first grant for constructing houses; 10,580 families were given
the second installment and none had got the third and final
installment. Besides, these embankment victims were expected to go
their old villages for farming since they were not alloted any land
for cultivation in the so called flood protected countryside. The
rehabilitation sites too became waterlogged, and the people returned
to their old villages. The government interpreted this retreat of the
villagers as their affection for their ancestral properties, and on
this excuse the rehabilitation process was abandoned before
completion.

It was not possible to physically rehabilitate the victims of the Kosi
Project, for the simple reason that it is impossible to arrange for so
much of land in this thickly populated area. This was probably why the
CM thought of economic rehabilitation instead; he was of the view that
not all the land within the Kosi embankments would be ruined, and that
agriculture would continue to be practised there. Against this
background, the government appointed a committee in 1962 to look into
the problems of agriculture, health, industry, revenue collection,
extension of securities and cooperation. The Development Commissioner
of the State, the Land Reforms Commissioner and the Chief
Administrator of the Kosi Project were members of the committee.

This committee achieved nothing. Then, in 1967, another committee was
constituted under the chairmanship of the Kosi Area Development
Commissioner whose job was to suggest programmes for the embankment
victims in the sectors of agriculture, cooperation, industrial
development and economic rehabilitation. This committee, too, did not
function. In 1981, another committee under the chairmanship of Chandra
Kishor Pathak, former chairman of Saharsa District Board, was
constituted to look into the problems of economic rehabilitation of
the embankment victims. This committee gave its report in 1982 and the
Government accepted its recommendations in 1987. Based on the
recommendations of the Pathak Committee, the state government
constituted Kosi Pirit Vikas Pradhikar (Kosi Sufferers Development
Authority) in the same year.

While recommending the constitution of this Authority, Bindeshwari
Dubey, then Chief Minister of Bihar, asserted that there might not be
any other place in the country where so many people are exposed to the
fury of the floods of a river. These people had lost all hope of their
betterment and his 'determined Government' was committed to their
overall development so that happiness would dawn on them. But, the
Authority of the 'Determined Government' remains a defunct body. It
does not have a building or an office of its own. It has no vehicles
and 'deputation employees' man its functions. It has no budget either.
At best, it can request the other departments to do certain things for
the embankment victims. It has some chairs and tables in the Vikas
Bhawan at Saharsa where its employees are occassionally seen.

For fifteen years the two committees set up to look into the problems
of those within the embankments did nothing, and twenty more years
have passed since a third committee made its recommendations.

The Authority decided, way back in 1989, that those living within the
embankmemnts would not have to pay the ferrying costs for coming to or
going out from their villages as they have to cross many channels of
the rivers. This would have ensured free movement to their villages
but could not be enforced. The Authority recommended to the Relief and
Rehabilitation Department of the state to provide free boats to the
embankment victims, at least, during the monsoon season. It could not
get that favour. Most of the primary schools within the embankments do
not have roofs over their buildings. Who will go to study there and
who would teach in such places? The doctors and the employees of the
Health Department do not visit the Health Centres and they cannot
visit there during the rainy season even if they want to because of
heavy currents in the river. Who will get the treatment and who then
will treat them?

It is written in the provisions of the Authority that fifteen per cent
of Class-3 and 4 jobs in the districts that have benefited from the
Kosi Project would be reserved for the embankment victims of the Kosi.
Nobody has received jobs with that qualification so far, not even in
the Kosi Sufferers Development Authority. There is no electricity, no
pucca roads, no college, no hospitals, no cinema house, no bank, no
block or any other office of the Government and there is no sign of
any modern development within the Kosi embankments. No outsider wants
to have marital relations with those in the embankments. Without the
employment found by those migrating to places like Delhi, Haryana,
Punjab or Gujarat, even simple existence would be hard. Struggling for
the rights of these people is also not anymore on the agenda of NGOs
and political parties - no one has time for a forgotten issue.

It is rumoured that some offices have been opened in Nepal to
investigate the proposed Barahkshetra Dam on the Kosi that is expected
to solve all the flood problems of Bihar, and that the Central
Government has given a grant of Rs. 290 millions to realize this
dream. One wonders whether there is any space for those trapped within
the embankments of the Kosi in the project. To them, it matters very
little where the office is; they are merely silenced witnesses to a
ravaged past. Their silence is simply made more eerie by the fact that
the 'development' that destroyed their lives still flows along the
same course, elsewhere up the river. The bitter harvest is unending.
⊕

Dinesh Mishra
19 Jan 2005



India is ill equipped to face disasters: Assocham

Bs Reporter / New Delhi September 3, 2008, 18:10 IST
http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?tp=on&autono=45919


The country’s leading corporates have unleashed their pent up
feelings, severely complaining that India is ill equipped to face
disasters as it is yet to put in place an effective Disaster
Management Plan



a survey conducted by industry body Assocham, nearly 78 per cent of
the country’s 400 corporates have admitted this.

312 CEO’s mostly belonging to companies in telecom, power generation
and transmission, oil, gas, sugar, infrastructure, hospitals,
railways, textiles, agro products have strongly felt the need for
creating a sound and proactive disaster management team to respond to
contingencies arising out of natural calamities.

Nearly 65 per cent of the respondents felt that Tusnami which struck
coastal part of India about 4 years ago had galvanised the Indian
administration to come out on war footings with disaster management
plans.

However, around 300 CEOs still hold that after Tusnami settled, the
disaster management was not given the required attention.

Over 55 per cent corporates participating in the survey said that the
involvement of private sector, common man, institutions like schools,
colleges and even NGOs in handling disasters is extremely negligible.

Even, media does not play a required role to suggest measures to
handle natural calamities, barring reporting them in a sensitive
manner, they added.

The Chamber has also emphasised that Disaster Management should be
made a permanent chapter in curricula of all schools so that students
are imparted necessary physical training to handle disaster like
situation before the forces are called upon to take on such exigencies
and calamities.

Over 70 per cent of the respondents, however, expressed satisfaction
that in order to respond effectively to floods and earthquake risk
mitigation, Ministry of Home Affairs has initiated National Disaster
Risk Management Programme in all States but much more needs to be
done.

According to them, a comprehensive programme should be taken up to
forewarn the people about possibilities of floods and earthquake so
that they evacuate themselves to safer places and sites in advance as
precautionary measures.

The Chamber is of the view that just a territorial army has been
created in the oil sector particularly in its downstream branch to
meet any sort of exigencies happening in refining and exploration
front, a similar force is recommended to be made to handle disasters.

A special corpus needs to be created for this purpose in which the
private sector should be asked to make 50 per cent contribution and
also send their experts in schools and institutions that are mandated
to create the suggested force.

There is a need of greater emphasis on infrastructure in large cities
and the government has to set aside a dedicated fund.

Over the last 15 years, there has been a 30-35 per cent increase in
urban population and most cities suffer from water shortage.



Bihar devastated by Kosi
26 Aug 2008, 0520 hrs IST, Subodh Varma,TNN

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Bihar_devastated_by_Kosi/articleshow/3405589.cms

NEW DELHI: Every once in a while, nature reminds humans that it is the
boss. The Kosi river, which gathers water from some of the highest
mountains in the world, including Everest, and enters India in north
Bihar, has changed its course and shifted over 120km eastwards, going
back to a course it had abandoned more than 300 years ago.

In the process it has rendered useless more than 300km of embankments
that had been built to control its ever-angry waters. The effect has
been enormous, inundating numerous towns and villages that had not
seen such floods for decades.

It is a Katrina moment in Bihar — nobody expected Hurricane Katrina to
breach the levees protecting New Orleans, that too in 53 places,
flooding 80% of the city and leaving a trail of never-seen-before
death and destruction.

Just like the people of New Orleans, who felt secure because the
levees were there, the people of Madhepura, Araria and Supaul
districts had faith in the embankments built on both sides of the Kosi
to keep the waters from flooding the adjacent plains. But they had not
reckoned with the enormous pent-up force unleashed by 51 billion cubic
metres of water. Finally, it broke through the embankment just after
the barrage at Bhimnagar — and swept into its old course.

The Kosi is called the Sorrow of Bihar because among all the fast-
flowing rivers that collect water in Nepal and speed down the
mountains into the plains of Bihar, it is the most dangerous. It
carries over 81 million tons of silt every year in its roiling
waters.

And, it is a young river, not yet having matured enough to settle on a
course. As it enters the northern plains the incline drops off, and
the water starts slowing down. Over the years silt gets deposited
giving Kosi its braided shape — it has several channels that diverge
and then again merge, like a braid, as the water tries to find new
ways to go further. As it shifts it leads a deposit of sand, which
renders the land barren.

Seen from a satellite, the area looks like a conical fan. Created by
hundreds of years of shifting, it is the largest such cone in the
world, covering an area of over 15,000 square km. The tip is near
Chatra on the Nepal border. The cone is made up of various courses of
Kosi and the land in between, which gets submerged during floods.

The Kosi used to wind its way on the eastern-most course. But as the
silting raised the level of the bed, it kept shifting westwards.
However, because there is an incline from the west to the east, the
waters couldn’t move westward any more and returned to the eastern
course once again.

Experts argue that building embankments allowed too much silt
deposition in a shorter stretch, leading to devastation. In other
words, young Kosi is not being allowed to grow up and settle down.
Meanwhile, people have to adjust to a new reality, the Kosi flowing in
its new course, redefining fields, roads and boundaries.
Major Historical Disasters (Natural & Manmade) With 20th Century
Timelines Available at Infoplease
Learn History of Worldwide Disasters, Tips for Survival From Trusted
Reference Site
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/major-historical-disasters-natural-/story.aspx?guid=%7BE1522964-DADD-4DF7-9606-DFC396A38978%7D&dist=hppr

Last update: 6:00 a.m. EDT Aug. 27, 2008
BOSTON, Aug 27, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- On Aug. 29, New
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EARTH OBSERVATION
India To Launch Exclusive Satellite To Track Natural Disasters



Bangalore, India (SPX) Nov 01, 2005
In the wake of the recent earthquake which caused havoc in India and
Pakistan, killing thousands of people, the Government of India has
decided to launch an exclusive satellite that can track natural
disasters, a top official said.
G Madhavan Nair, chief of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO),
stated in Bangalore that India would launch the Radar Imaging
Satellite (RISAT), configured for disaster management, with in a
couple of years.

"Most of the disasters that happen relate to climate or the weather,
like cyclones or the floods have, and we have to look through the
clouds. The radar imaging satellites has become important. We are
working on that and we hope such satellites will be operational within
a couple of years," Nair told a function to celebrate the 32nd
foundation day of the Bangalore chapter of premier business school,
Indian Institute of Management.

India, which has launched 10 remote sensing satellites since 1988 in
addition to several broadcast satellites, launched this year a
satellite that can map every house and street in the sub-continent.

CARTOSAT-1 would help urban and rural planning, land and water
management, relief operations and environmental assessments.

Experts say some 56 million Indians are hit by disaster each year but
there is no long-term policy to prepare for and manage these natural
and man-made calamities.

A recent report on the calamities said that on average, disasters in
India kill 5,063 people, affect more than 56 million people and cost
some 1.88 billion dollars every year.

It said floods hit 11.2 per cent of the land and 28 percent is hit by
drought.

More than half the land is vulnerable to earthquakes and the 7,516-km
(4,700-mile) coastline is whipped by cyclones that pummel the eastern
coast, specially in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.



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Man made calamities


Source: Leader writer: RK Lakhi Kant
Posted: 2005-11-12
http://www.kanglaonline.com/index.php?template=headline&newsid=1121&typeid=0&
There are some natural phenomena like floods, cyclones, tsunamis,
earthquakes etc. that cannot be predicted. But still science has
advanced so much that large scale death and destruction can be avoided
in many cases like the hurricanes which hit the some areas in the USA
recently. Almost whole cities were evacuated before the storms hit the
areas. Still other calamities like floods and earthquakes are to be
faced as there is not much anyone can do about it. The devastating
earthquake in Pakistan and India only recently is an example of how
unpredictable and out of control of humans such events are. These
events are concerning nature and beyond humans to fight. But there are
other events that cause similar misfortune among the people and which
have completely man made causes which at times are due to the
foolishness or lack of farsightedness of some people. Some examples of
such events are riots, carnages, ethnic cleansing, large scale wars
etc. All these are preventable if only the main actors in such events
were more humane and had a larger sense of responsibility or a sense
of brotherhood with others. There are many minor events also which do
not cause so many deaths or large scale loss but which are equally
disastrous when seen in the long run. Take for instance the state of
communication in the state. It has been in a state of total disarray
and mismanagement through the years since Manipur became a state and
in fact even before that. But the level of awareness of our
politicians and legislators regarding this problem is so wayward and
low that this problem has remained unsolved for a long time and in
future too there seems to be little hope for the state. Those who are
to do their bit to improve conditions keep blaming the Centre for our
problems. But it is not the Centre which has to look into every little
problem of ours. It is only ourselves who dwell in this place who must
take the initiative and solve our problems sincerely. The level of
awareness of our leaders seems to go only as far as passing the buck
to others. This brand of wisdom has failed us time and again. There is
hardly a leader in the state who can see beyond petty political games
and be a true leader.

The problem is not in just one area but like a disease it is spread
out over many areas. The government today is severely crippled due to
lack of leadership and insight into problems facing the people. There
seems to be no need for any physical or moral qualifications for being
a leader in this state. The current political situation in the state
where there is a demand from the ruling legislators for a reshuffle in
the ministry is another example of how things are going on in the
state. For the people it hardly matters whether the reshuffle takes
place or not as their condition would remain the same in any case. The
politicians seem to be interested only in such matters of selfish
interest and are hardly concerned for improving the administration.
The various bandhs, blockades, dharnas etc. taken up by the public
very frequently nowadays is not to be blamed only on them. In truth it
is due to the political leaders that such eventualities are taking
place. And the fact is that due to continued exposure to such means
the public is beginning to be led to believe that the use of solely
such means can actually bring about change in their condition without
any other effort from their side. This way the quality of their
citizenship is falling drastically. This matter should be of urgent
concern to us. While natural calamities do not come so frequently and
are anyway beyond our control it is the man made calamities we must be
beware of.





Times of India reports from New Delhi:
Though called in late by the civil administration for rescue and
relief work in flood-hit Bihar, the armed forces are now hopeful of
being able to evacuate the estimated 3 lakh people still marooned in
the affected areas in the next two-three days with the help of other
agencies.

After shifting into “top gear” only late last week after the
“requisite clearances” came through, the armed forces are stepping up
their deployment in districts like Madhepura, Supaul, Araria, Purnia
and Katihar.
Read More:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Army_hopes_to_evacuate_3_lakh_people_in_3_days/articleshow/3438319.cms


Gogoi directed the Jorhat district authorities to ensure adequate
relief to the people with food scarcity looming large in the island as
supply of essentials was hit by the rising water level.


The waist-deep flood waters engulfed 167 villages with a population of
1.5 lakh and was threatening fresh areas in the island, which houses
several 'satras' (Vaishnavite monasteries).


The authorities were forced to shift 34 prisoners from Goramur sub-
divisional jail to Jorhat central jail following the inundation in
Majuli, the sources said.


The situation in lower Assam's Rangiya sub-division too is critical
following breaches in four embankments by Puthimari river.


With NH-31, the lifeline of the north east, still under flood water,
road communication with the rest of the country is snapped for the
fourth day on Wednesday, the sources said.


The army continued to assist the government in providing relief to the
affected people across the state, the sources said.


The situation in the Kaziranga National Park, famed for its one-horned
rhinos, is also critical with more than 50 percent of the park area
under flood waters.


The animals, including rhinos and elephants, are taking shelter on
high platforms constructed within the park.


The park authorities have set up barricades along the highway for
limiting vehicle speed to 40 kmph for protecting animals from being
run over while migrating to the hills of neighbouring Karbi Anglong,
the sources said.


Brahmaputra was flowing above the danger level in Dibrugarh, Sonitpur,
Dhubri, Jorhat, Kamrup districts. In Guwahati, the river has touched
the danger level. (ANI)



Nevertheless, high-level team of the officials from the Centre lead by
Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar met the Chief Minister Nitish
Kumar and senior state officials in Patna on Tuesday. The Cabinet
Secretary informed the Chief Minister about the ongoing relief
operations carried out by the armed forces and other central agencies
and assured him that the efforts would continue in full swing. He has
asked the state administration to provide the details of further
assistance required by them. Kumar appreciated the assistance given by
the Armed Forces and desired that the main focus should be on
rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. He sought for more columns
of Army for evacuation of the marooned persons and the Air Force for
dropping of relief material.


The State Relief Commissioner has requested for more supplies of food,
medicines and baby food. He has also sought veterinary services and
establishment of relief camps wherever the railway heads are
available. He also emphasized that efforts should be strengthened for
evacuation of the stranded people. The Indian Air Force is operating
11 helicopters, 3 IL-76, 13 AN-32 and 2 Avro aircraft for evacuation
and dropping of relief materials.


About 100 boats are being sent to the flood affected areas today.


Defence Secretary Vijay Singh, Secretary of Ministry of Water
Resources U N Panjiar, Secretary Border Management Jarnail Singh and
other senior officials accompanied the Cabinet Secretary.


Senior BJP leader LK Advani met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on
Wednesday to seek a solution to the problem of recurrent floods in
Bihar, where around 25 lakh people have been rendered homeless in the
worst ever floods in the Kosi region.

Advani urged Dr. Singh to find both long and short term solutions to
the problem of recurrent floods in Bihar.

Advani, who made an aerial survey of flood-ravaged regions of Bihar
along with State Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday, said, "Since
the recurrent floods in Bihar caused by rivers originating in Nepal
have international dimensions, I would meet the Prime Minister on
Wednesday to seek both long and short term solutions to the problem in
coordination with the government in the Himalayan country,"

"In today's situation, everybody should come together to help rather
than indulging in mud sledging," Advani added.

The state's main opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had earlier
lashed out at the state administration, accusing it of laxity in
providing relief to the flood victims.

The flooding, the worst in 50 years, was caused after the Kosi River
breached a dam in Nepal. This unleashed huge waves of water that
smashed mud embankments downstream in Bihar state.

The waters of Kosi gushed into the state inundating vast areas and
affecting around two million people.

SC declines hearing on PIL for repair of Kosi river embankment
9/2/2008

The Supreme Court declined to hear a PIL seeking directions to the
Union government to take up the matter regarding the repairing and
strengthening of the embankment of Kosi river, located in the
territory of Nepal.

A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrisnan and Justices P
Sathasivam and J M Panchal asked the counsel for the petitioners "Can
this court do anything in the matter? The government is already taking
all necessary steps for the relief and resce of those marooned in the
floods in Bihar." Praveen Chandra and Sanjay Kumar Vidyarthi in their
petition have also prayed to the apex court to issue a writ of
mandamus to the government to take appropriate measures to ensure that
the problem does not occur in future.

The petitioners have also expressed dissatisfaction with the efforts
of the state as well as the Union government in helping out millions
of people marooned and uprooted to the worst flood situation that has
occurred, submerging 13 districts of Bihar.

The state was hit by floods on August 18 when the Kosi embankment
situated in Nepal was breached.

The apex court will, however, hear the petition on September 15 along
with another petition already pending in the court.

Around 26.68 lakh people are entrapped in the flood and over 20 lakh
people are still waiting to be evacuated to safer places. The Army has
already taken over the relief and rescue work in the state.

UNI


PTI reports from Saharsa/Purnia (Bihar): The Kosi may have changed its
course killing and displacing many in Bihar, but the river has also
"sank" religious differences as evident in relief camps where RSS men
were seen serving food to Muslims.
Clad in khaki shorts and caps, RSS men are serving gram and flattened
rice to Muslim flood victims in a relief camp at Saharsa.

The camp being run by 'Seva Bharti', a Sangh Parivar outfit, at the
zila school campus at Saharsa presents a rare but heartening sight
where the devastating deluge of Kosi has sunk bitterness and
differences.

"Over a 100 people of my community are taking shelter here for more
than a week now and we have absolutely no complaint .... Life cannot
be better than this in a relief shelter," says Mohammed Salauddin, who
fled Parba village in Madhepura district along with his family to
escape the flood fury.

In another camp, a kilometre away, a joyful reunion was taking place.
The prayers of Phulo Devi, who has observed fasts on all occasions of
'Teej', have been answered.

Nago Paswan, her husband, who works as a farmhand in far away Punjab
and had not visited their village in Murliganj in Madhepura for the
last couple of years, rushed home when he learned of the flood havoc,
but was stranded at Saharsa.

As luck would have it, he met Phulo and his children Rinku, Mamta and
Rahul at the relief camp.

"I am relieved that my family is alive .... I had given up hope after
watching on TV the destruction caused in Murliganj," says Nago.

Inept response to floods outrages India
Wed Sep 3, 2008 3:26am EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single
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By Bappa Majumdar

PURNEA, India, Sept 3 (Reuters) - For several days, Urmi Mahato and
her family were glued to the radio and TV, eager for information on
rising floodwaters and waiting for the government to tell them whether
and when to evacuate their home.

The warning never came, and officials assured there was no danger.
Then one morning a wall of water crumpled the river's mud embankment,
swamping the village and sweeping away her family.

"I do not know where to look for them, there is no one to help me,"
said the 24-year-old woman, sitting at a government relief camp in
Bihar, one of India's poorest states.

The floods have forced more than three million people from their
homes, destroyed 100,000 ha (250,000 acres) of farmland and killed at
least 90 people.

Media reports say the toll is at least 10 times higher, after the Kosi
river, which originates in Nepal, burst a dam last month and unleashed
the worst flooding in Bihar in 50 years.

But the tragedy is not entirely nature's doing. Experts and aid
agencies blame government ineptness for not only failing to warn
people but also for mishandling relief.

In the most shocking example, SOS fax messages sent by engineers at
the Kosi dam warning of impending disaster were ignored in Bihar's
capital Patna, the Mail Today newspaper said.

The faxes piled up on the relevant bureaucrat's desk because he was on
leave and no deputy had been appointed. No one reacted even when
warnings were sent to other officials, the paper said, calling for
prosecutions for criminal negligence.

"We have come across such reports, and we will definitely look into
this issue once all this is over," Nitish Mishra, the state's disaster
management minister, told Reuters in Bihar.

"There should definitely be some accountability."

Anger is mounting and stick-wielding victims have resorted to looting
food warehouses and trucks in some areas.

The threat of disease is also rising, but the government says it could
take months before people can return home from camps.

The monsoon comes every year and also caused severe flooding in Bihar
last year, but authorities admit they were not prepared for the scale
of the disaster.

"Neither us nor the people thought such a devastation could happen so
suddenly," said Mishra.

FAILURE TO THINK AHEAD

But aid agencies are unimpressed by the speed of the relief effort.
Hundreds of thousands of people are still trapped on rooftops,
elevated roads or surrounded by water in distant villages, without any
food or water.

"On the ground, preparedness is missing in the current response," said
ActionAid's P.V. Unnikrishnan. "Preparedness cannot be a knee-jerk
reaction and currently preparing against disasters is not on the radar
of the government."

After days of delay, India finally stepped up evacuation and relief
this week by deploying 14 more columns of army personnel, while three
naval companies were also asked to help.

More than 560,000 people have been evacuated, and 200,000 have been
moved to government relief camps, officials said.

Environmentalists say the government should have de-silted the river
as Kosi, known as the "river of sorrow" for its ability to quickly
change course, leaves behind heavy silt and debris.

"The floods have pushed Bihar back to 50 years and authorities should
be blamed for a slow response not the river," said Rameshwar Prasad, a
local historian and environmentalist.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said the floods, as
well hurricanes in the Atlantic, were reminders of the risks of ever
more extreme weather linked to a changing climate.

Indian experts agree, saying the government must wake up to the
complex issue of climate change quickly.

"It looks unusual for such heavy rains to hit Nepal and Bihar at the
same time and cause floods so regularly," Sunita Narain, a climate
change expert said in New Delhi.

"We don't have time now, we better get our act together now and
prepare to face disasters tomorrow." (Editing by Simon Denyer)

Curse of Kosi: A legend comes true
31 Aug 2008, 0203 hrs IST, Abhay Mohan Jha,TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Curse_of_Kosi_A_legend_comes_true/articleshow/3426653.cms

MADHEPURA: For both the new generation in Madhepura and the adjoining
districts of Supaul, Araria and Purnia, until now the Kosi was just a
river held at bay by the embankment near the Nepal border. Its fury
was merely a tale carried over generations by word of mouth, folklores
and songs. School textbooks too described it as Bihar's Sorrow. Just
as the Huang Ho or the Yellow river was China's Sorrow. But it was all
just a tale. The Kosi had been tamed by the embankment. Also, it had
spared this region in its eastern basin by changing course to more
than 100km to the west over the past 100 years.

The long hiatus nourished a tradition of farming, dairying, trade and
culture. But the Kosi's tale has come back from the dead. The
reincarnation of its anger is bringing death and devastation in a
rapidly spreading arc. The toothless tales of its past fury are
suddenly alive and residents now feel the sting they missed in dadi
ma's tales. "Even village elders do not remember anything remotely
similar to the tragedy that has unfolded here," Khushilal Rishidev, a
landless dalit labourer from Singheshwar said.

Kamleshwari Prasad, 84, a farmer from Mathai in Madhepura, does
remember scenes somewhat similar to today's, though. "The main road of
Madhepura town fell in the Kosi's course in the 1942 floods," he
remembered the plying of boats in the town then. But there are no
boats at hand today when the river is determined to drown the entire
township and beyond.

"The thana (police station) and the block office were shifted to 6km
away to Mathai then," Prasad recalled, just as he solemnly saw people
shifting out on Saturday.

Murliganj, a market town talked about as the economic hub of the
Madhepura hinterland has been wiped out. With the town on the verge of
drowning, any hope of rescuing the thousands marooned in the vicinity
of Murliganj too seems to have sunk. "My father, a diabetic, and my
children are dying of starvation in the village," cried Bam Shankar
Chowdhary of Jorgama. "Ab koi nahin bachega," Aditya Singh of Korlahi
village said in resignation.

Octagenarian Basant Kumar Sinha has fled his Madhepura home for the
first time. "Kosi has been unkind in the winter of his life," nephew
Rahul rued.

"Kamla bigdal, Kosi bigdal, bigaid gail Bhutahi-Balan. Baal bachcha
sab duibb maral, ruis gela bhagwan (The Kamla has got furious, so have
the Kosi and the Bhutahi-Balan. Our children and families have been
drowned. The gods have turned their heads away)," goes a Maithili folk
song. Its angst is searingly in motion with the roiling waters of the
Kosi. Bihar's sorrow has come in a devastating reincarnation.

Missing the river for the dam
3 Sep, 2008, 0003 hrs IST,Sudhirendar Sharma,
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Guest_Writer/Missing_the_river_for_the_dam/articleshow/3438078.cms
The simplistic notion that a high dam in upper reaches can bring down
the impact of floods in Kosi seems reflective of failed Indian
hydrocracy, an expression gaining currency in regional water
discourses. Raising contentious high dam issue at this stage, when the
political atmosphere in Nepal is charged in favour of annulling all
previous treaties including the 1954 Kosi treaty, will amount to
diplomatic arrogance.

Nepal has long argued that a high dam doesn’t favour her, and that the
projected benefits have been grossly exaggerated. These claims have
been further accentuated by the raw deal reportedly received in the
previous water-sharing arrangements, including the 1959 Gandak treaty.
The present deluge upstream of the Bhimnagar barrage on Kosi has only
amplified the accumulated aspersions.

The dilapidated state of the barrage could not convince this writer
and other members of an independent fact-finding mission in early
March that it could carry its designed discharge of 950,000 cusecs.
The silt choked east and the west bank canals emanating from the
barrage, their combined irrigation capacities reduced by two-third on
account of defunct silt ejectors, could only add pressure on the main
structure and the embankments upstream.

Sharing preliminary findings with the press, the fact finding mission
had warned: “...not only are floods in Bihar manmade but that the
worse has yet to come, should the political economy of flood control
continue to promote ‘embankment’ as the only solution to the scourge
of floods.” That the worse would come so soon couldn’t be predicted,
but it undoubtedly had the making of a catastrophe.

Delhi has got its flood action plan consistently wrong over the years,
and so has Patna. Yet, both never stop either blaming the rains or
Kathmandu for it. Like floods, it is an annual ritual for politicians
in Bihar to reiterate that Nepal has released water and that a high
dam is the only solution to control floods. Little do unsuspecting
masses realise that if there is no dam, how could water be stored
upstream? But the myth persists!

Shockingly, however, flood control measures over the years have turned
north Bihar into a watery grave for thousands. Jacketing the silt-
laden rivers has helped flood prone area increase three fold in the
state since Independence, from a low of 25 lakh to a high of 68 lakh
hectare today. It amounts to no less than 73% of the entire land mass
that remains prone under normal floods.

It is tragic that a catastrophic flood only sends alarming signals,
emergency aerial surveys and fresh relief packages being the temporary
outcomes. That over two million people are permanently trapped between
the flood control embankments and an estimated eight million are faced
with acute water-logging outside of the embankments are hard facts
that continue to get ignored, year after year.
What instead gets attention is jacketing of the rivers, over 3,465 km
long embankments have been built in Bihar since 1952. More are in the
offing; a Rs 792-crore package to tame the Bagmati has been approved
and another proposal to embank the tributaries of Mahananda at an
estimated cost of Rs 850 crore has been planned. The business of
embankment building reflects politician-bureaucrat-contractor nexus at
its best.


India rescue at 'crucial' stage
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7595223.stm
Officials say that water levels are coming down
Efforts to rescue flood victims have entered a "final and crucial"
stage in the northern Indian state of Bihar, the senior official in
charge has said.

Prataya Amrit told the BBC News website that 60,000 to 80,000 people
needed to be rescued from "six critical areas" in the districts of
Sepaul and Madhepura.

He said more than 650,000 people had been rescued from the affected
areas. More than 90 people have died.

Water levels in the flooded areas have come down "drastically", he
said.

Meanwhile, monsoon waters have been causing havoc in India's Assam
state, as well as in Nepal and Bangladesh.

Disease fears

The authorities in Bihar have been criticised for failing to rescue
flood victims well over a week after the scale of the flooding became
apparent.

Monsoon rains caused the river Kosi to change course, severely
affecting areas not normally prone to floods.

Mr Amrit said that more than 3,000 soldiers, aided by the navy, had
rescued most of the stranded people.

"We are looking to complete rescue and evacuation operations over the
next two days," he said.


More than 250 relief camps have been set up

"It is the most crucial part of the operation because these are areas
which have borne the maximum brunt of the floods."

These areas are in the worst affected districts of Sepaul and
Madhepura.

However, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Bihar, Mandan Bharti
Jagriti Samaj (MBJS), says that 500,000 people still needed to be
rescued.

Mr Amrit said that more than 275,000 flood victims had been lodged in
more than 250 relief camps in Sepaul, Madhepura, Saharsa and Araria
districts.

Tens of thousands of survivors have crowded into unsanitary relief
camps, where tensions are growing over the desperate lack of emergency
supplies.

There have been reports of flood victims looting relief near some of
the camps.

Mr Amrit admitted that there was a problem. "There is a gap between
the demand and supply of relief material. We are trying to bridge this
gap," he said.

With the numbers of people in the camps expected to nearly double in
the coming days, there are fears that poor conditions could lead to
outbreaks of diseases such as cholera.

The UN warned that "the heat, combined with limited supplies of safe
drinking water and poor hygiene conditions, poses a great risk of
water and vector-borne diseases".

Nepal affected

The disaster began on 18 August when the Kosi broke its eastern bank
in Nepal, where the river is often called the Saptakoshi.

The river's flow is regulated by a barrage - on the Nepalese side of
the border - which was built in the late 1950s.



Under a joint agreement India, agreed to pay for the work and be
responsible for its maintenance.

Some analysts point out that the structure was built only as a short-
term solution, meant to last 20 or 30 years.

Others accuse the Indian government of having failed in its duty to
maintain and repair the defences. If they had, they argue, the river
could have been kept on course.

Indian engineers say the Nepalese authorities did not give them the
safe access they needed to carry out the work and that there were
labour problems.

Massive natural silting is also a major problem. Critics say joint
efforts to control that silting were also inadequate this year.

In Nepal itself, officials say hundreds of people have been hit by
illnesses such as diarrhoea and pneumonia, and an estimated 50,000 are
homeless.

They say nearly 1,000 houses have been completely destroyed, and that
power supplies and transport have been severely affected.

The costs to the economy are now estimated at one billion Nepalese
rupees ($14.25m).




Bihar govt's negligent attitude responsible for floods: Minister

Press Trust Of India / New Delhi September 03, 2008, 18:44 IST



Senior RJD leader and Union Minister of State for Water Resources
Jaiprakash Narayan Yadav today accused the Bihar government of massive
flood in the state by being "totally negligent" in taking preventive
measures.

Yadav alleged that Bihar State Water Resources Department, till August
17, kept on giving reports from the flood control cell that all the
embankments under its jurisdiction were safe.

However, when a breach in the east Kosi embankment at Kusaha in Nepal
occurred on August 18, Yadav said, the Bihar Government came up with a
report that erosions were taking place at the Kosi dam in Upper Nepal
on Bahothan embankment for the past several days.

According to Yadav, the report also said regional engineers had been
continuously working to make it safe but some anti-social elements
forced out the labourers working to protect the embankment and
consequently pressure increased at the embankment.

Yadav said the government further stated in its August 18 report that
the flood control team could not reach to control the situation at the
spot following a law and order problem created by Nepalese and the
local administration's failure in containing it.

"This is how the government played with its own report to steer clear
of its responsibility. This is not a heresay disclosure but facts
based on documents," Yadav said showing the copies of the Bihar
Government reports to the reporters.

He said it has been notified that how and when work has to be started
and completed in Kosi area.

Bihar's worst floods, yet most babus sit idle
3 Sep 2008, 0124 hrs IST, Pranava K Chaudhary ,TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Bihars_worst_floods_but_most_babus_sit_idle/articleshow/3437102.cms
PATNA: There is no shortage of bureaucrats in Bihar. Yet, only a
chosen few are engaged in the biggest-ever relief operations in flood-
hit areas of the state. The rest have been mysteriously kept away from
the crisis areas. In the absence of any defined assignment, most are
keeping themselves abreast of the situation through news bulletins.

The bureaucrats, though, are willing to involve themselves in the
massive humanitarian mission underway. But the government doesn’t seem
to be paying heed.

‘‘I want to be involved in relief operations. I want to share my
experience at this time of crisis,’’ said a senior IPS officer. A
number of senior IAS officers with years of experience are virtually
sitting idle in the secretariat. There is little work with hardly any
official assignments. ‘‘I am drawing a hefty salary for doing nothing.
The government doesn’t consider me fit for such exigency,’’ complained
a secretary rank bureaucrat.

At least a dozen secretaries have admitted that a ‘‘culture of
silence’’ prevails in the corridors of power. ‘‘Those who have dared
to utter a word which is not suited to the ‘Raja’ have been relegated
to the background,’’ said a disgruntled senior IPS officer. The list
of those who have dared to speak out and have paid a heavy price is
long.

Till date, the government does not have a full-fledged disaster
management secretary. The over-burdened principal secretary road
construction department R K Singh has had additional charge of
disaster management department during the past six months.

Bihar State Bridge Corporation MD, Pratayay Amrit, has recently been
assigned as additional commissioner of disaster management department.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has the disaster management department
portfolio.

Senior IAS officers posted in ‘‘innocuous’’ departments allege that
they have been deliberately kept away from prestigious departments.
Bihar’s devastating floods, they point out, require the services of
the state’s large contingent of experienced bureaucrats at ground zero
to monitor the mammoth rescue operation.

Instead of sending experienced officials, the government chose to
deploy state cadres officials (some of them are on the verge of
retirement) to monitor the relief operations.

The whole exercise of appointing special DMs in flood hit districts
has turned futile. During last year’s flood, the government had also
appointed special DMs which hardly made any difference, an official
pointed out. ‘‘Special DMs and disaster management department are
engaged in compiling laundry list statistics rather than rushing
relief materials,’’ said an official.

Newborns in Bihar named after Kosi
3 Sep 2008, 0302 hrs IST, Abhay Mohan Jha,TNN
SAHARSA: The Kosi has brought doom to Bihar. But amid the deluge and
destruction, the turbulent river has also brought smiles to some
families. As some pregnant women delivered in shelter camps this week,
the newborns were named after the river which has snatched away
everything from hundreds of thousands of families in the state.

On Tuesday evening, as volunteers at a camp here gathered to prepare
Wednesday’s menu for the flood victims, they also planned a
celebration for Pinki, 20, and her husband Sudhir Sah, a couple
displaced by the Kosi from their village in Madhepura. Pinki gave
birth to a girl on Monday. ‘‘A daughter’s birth is auspicious,’’ Amit
Swarnkar, a volunteer, said, ‘‘ Lakshmi ka janam hua hai .’’

Although the flood has pushed the Sahs to penury, the family is not
angry with the river. ‘‘We are going to call her Kosia,’’ Rekha, the
baby’s aunt, chirped, ‘‘We have been swept by the Kosi and she has
been born on the Kosi bed,’’ The baby blinks her small eyes amid all
this chatter, making her family smile.

Just two kilometres away, at a relief camp on the RMM Law College
premises, two families paid rich tributes to the might
of the turbulent river as two women birth to baby girls in the camp
this week. As Roopvi, a 19-year-old mother cradled her
baby, her mother-in-law declared: ‘‘ Kosi Maharani naam raakhbai
(We’ll call her Empress Kosi).’’
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Bihar_newborns_being_named_after_Kosi/articleshow/3438495.cms



all 3 news articles »
Voice of America Nitish must be tried for genocide, says RJD leader
Times of India, India - 1 Sep 2008
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from its main course, causing devastation in several districts. ...
Bihar flood victims loot relief depot NDTV.com
Deve Gowda demands technical panel on floods in Bihar Economic Times
Over five lakhs evacuated as flood situation eases marginally Hindu
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Fresh News Kosi floods: Relief work on a war footing
Times of India, India - 31 Aug 2008
NEW DELHI: The armed forces have moved into "top gear" to assist in
the rescue and relief work in districts reeling under the devastation
wreaked by Kosi ...
Armed forces pluck Bihar flood affected to safety IBNLive.com
Army intensifies relief operations in Bihar Hindu
‘Army made to wait for six days before deployment in Bihar’
Thaindian.com
Howrah News Service - Press Information Bureau (press release)
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BBC News Kosi threatens to swallow Katihar, Purnia
Times of India, India - 27 Aug 2008
PURNIA/ARARIA/FORBESGANJ: The turbulent Kosi, which breached the
eastern afflux bund at Kusaha in Nepal and has wrought catastrophe-
like havoc in Bihar's ...
Kosi river flows dangerousl Economic Times
Bihar to seek help on Kosi breach Business Standard
Kosi's fury leaves 42 dead in Bihar NDTV.com
Press Trust of India - Sify
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Greater disaster averted, says Kosi battler
Thaindian.com, Thailand - 5 hours ago
Kathmandu, Sep 3 (IANS) After a deluge that unleashed havoc in Nepal
and India, the battle against the raging Saptakoshi river has finally
begun to turn in
State engineers ill-equipped to plug Kosi breaches
Times of India, India - 1 Sep 2008
NEW DELHI: Plugging the breach in Kosi embankment that unleashed havoc
in Bihar is proving to be a massive challenge which the state
government’s engineers ...

TopNews Flood situation grim; Kosi breaches JBC canal in Purnia
Times of India, India - 31 Aug 2008
PURNIA: Spelling further trouble for lakhs of people already
devastated by the floods in Bihar, the Kosi breached the Jankinagar
Branch Canal (JBC) ...
Bihar floods: Kosi breaches Jankinagar canal in Purnia Thaindian.com
Flood situation deteriorates in north Bihar, Lower Assam districts
Hindu
Bihar flood situation worsens NDTV.com
Zee News - India Today
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ArcelorMittal offers aid to flood-hit Bihar
Economic Times, India - 3 hours ago
... Singh had announced Rs 1000-crore aid and 1.25 lakh metric tonnes
of foodgrains for the people reeling under an unprecedented deluge
caused by river Kosi.
ArcelorMittal offers help for Bihar flood victims Times of India
Biharis in city struggle to reach out back home Times of India
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Trickle begins as Kosi curse carries on in Bihar
Expressindia.com, India - 1 Sep 2008
New Delhi, September 1 With floods in Bihar leaving some 7 lakh people
stranded across five districts, the first train carrying victims
reached the Capital ...
Relief as Kosi water gets outflow into Ganga
Times of India, India - 31 Aug 2008
PATNA: There seems to be some good news finally from the flood-ravaged
Kosi region in Bihar. The outflow of the Kosi's water into the Ganga
increased on ...
Madhepura turns ghost town as Kosi swamps everything in way
Economic Times, India - 31 Aug 2008
MADHEPURA : With thousands fleeing to escape the ever-rising waters of
the Kosi river, Madhepura town in Bihar is on the verge of becoming a
ghost town. ...
RJD fixes blame on govt Hindustan Times
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Curse of Kosi: Relief still not adequate
NDTV.com, India - 31 Aug 2008
Floods continue to ravage Bihar, but rescue workers with relief
materials are gradually trickling in. For days, a family survived on
the rooftop of a home, ...
Bihar floods: Now, Centre plays blame game
Times of India, India - 2 Sep 2008
... government being accused by the Centre of not sending a scheme for
works to be executed on the damaged dams on the Nepal section of the
Kosi river. ...
Curse of Kosi: Man who saw his sons drown
NDTV.com, India - 30 Aug 2008
As Bihar struggles with Kosi's wrath, it's getting difficult for
people to keep their hopes alive, waiting for relief desperately. ...
Man saved 9, then watched sons drown NDTV.com
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Evacuation in flood-hit Bihar to be completed in three days
Thaindian.com, Thailand - 2 Sep 2008
Over 2.5 million people in 1598 villages spread over 15 districts have
been affected by the floods triggered by the Kosi. The floods have
claimed 35 lives ...

Time running out fast for people in flood-hit Madhepura
Hindu, India - 29 Aug 2008
The people from villages adjoining Murliganj had taken shelter with
their cattle on the railway line Since August 20 after Kosi veered its
course and ...
Boat sinks in flooded northern India, killing 20 The Associated Press
20 feared dead as Army rescue boat sinks in Bihar NDTV.com
Several feared dead as rescue boat capsizes Press Trust of India
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Prabhu joins hands with FICCI for river connectivity
Zee News, India - 33 minutes ago
The Kosi river has created havoc in north Bihar, which is suffering
one of the worst floods leaving lakhs of people homeless. After the
Kosi river water ...

The Associated Press Indian military mounts mammoth flood rescue
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The Associated Press - 21 hours ago
Only then will workers be able to plug the breach in the Kosi River
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Times Now.tv Ground zero: Story of hunger & desperation
Times Now.tv, India - 13 hours ago
After seventeen days, Bihar continues to reel under the wrath of the
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Boats too few, victims wait on trees Calcutta Telegraph
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AFP Indian flood victims face months of destitution
AFP - 12 hours ago
Officials said work to fix the flood walls and divert the Kosi river
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Caritas to feed 270000 people hit by floods in India
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Over 2500000 people in the Indian State of Bihar have had to flee the
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