Kosi, as the name clearly points out, means curse. Like most rivers of the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra basins of North Indian plains, it originates from the lofty Himalayan mountains. Unlike the rain-fed rivers of Peninsular India, the Himalayan rivers are snow-fed and have water throughout the year. According to an estimate about 6,000 big and small rivers, rivulets and streams originate from Himalayas.
Since they emanate from very high mountain ranges, when they flow across Nepal, their current is extremely fast, especially in monsoon. Kosi has something especial. Its current is faster than all the Himalayan rivers as Mount Everest is situated in the north-eastern corner of Nepal. Thus the slope from north to south is very steep.
It is because of this geographical feature that North Bihar has become the play ground of Himalyan rivers which, after crisscrossing North Bihar plains, ultimately submerge their identity into the west-east flowing Ganga. About 56 per cent of country’s flood-prone area is in this state. Thus North Bihar is a sort of bowl or sink.
In the last over 250 years, because of the repeated devastating floods, Kosi moved more than 110 km westward before falling into Ganga. Whenever it changed its course, it swallowed thousands of people and caused massive displacement and destruction. Thus to overcome recurrent floods the then Nehru government undertook a massive project to erect embankments on both sides of the river. This was done with many other Himalayan rivers of the state too.
Embanking Kosi all along, from Nepal to India and further south, was no doubt a massive exercise and it was completed between 1956 and 1962. The Government of India got built a barrage on river Kosi not only on India-Nepal border but inside the Nepalese territory as well. Another such a barrage inside Nepalese territory was constructed on river Gandak in West Chamaparan district of Bihar. Both these barrages inside the Nepalese territories are controlled and supervised by the engineers of the Bihar government. Therefore, there is no question of Nepal’s role in the flood.
What happened on August 17-18 night was that there occurred a breach on the eastern embankment of the river just north to barrage inside the Nepalese territory – about 12 km. The fact is that the embankment started caving in from August 6 itself but the Bihar government completely ignored it. Now whatever blame they are putting on Nepal is a blatant lie and nothing else. If there is even an iota of truth in this allegation then what Sharad Yadav, the president of Janata Dal (United), the party to which Nitish Kumar belongs, was doing in Nepal on August 17 – the day Prachanda took over as the Prime Minister of that country. If Nepal is such an enemy, why should Sharad Yadav have been there? After all a large number of Nepalese too died as the water gushing out of the breach swept away several villages of that country before it entered the Indian territory.
Since the breach was not taken as seriously as it should have been it expanded from 400 metres on the first day to three kilometres a couple of days later. Thus through this breach a new course of river came into being. River experts say that Kosi used to flow almost through this channel before 1731 flood, which then pushed it some kilometres westward. This time the river is flowing in a wide area of 15-18 kilometres and swallowed hundreds of villages and even towns. Madhepura, the district headquarters, has been engulfed by the expanded span of the river. Therefore, the entire population had to be evacuated – those left or could not be taken out are likely to perish in the next few days.
The irony is that when Kosi breached the pressure of water on the embankment was not so great. It was simply because of the sheer absence of supervision that this devastation took place. At that time 1.25 lakh cusecs of water was passing though it, now it has doubled. By October mid it may rise to eight to nine lakh cusecs a day, therefore, it is going to destroy much more.
It is unfortunate that instead of doing the relief work the government machinery started spreading canards after canards. The most blatant one was that Kosi breached for the first time this year after being embanked in early 1960s. The truth, however, is that Kosi embankment was breached for the first time in 1963 at Dalwa in Nepal, in 1968 at Jamalpur in Darbhanga, in 1971 at Bhatniyan in Supaul, in 1980 at Bhauarwa in Saharsa, in 1984 at Hempur in Saharsa and in 1991 in Joginiyan in Nepal. Mind it in 1991 Lalu Prasad was in power and in all those occasions, notwithstanding destruction, the situation was soon brought under control and the breach was plugged. This time the whole exercise was to suppress the news.
The saddest aspect is that a fortnight after the devastation the state government says that only 74 people have died in this parlay (qiyamat). Let them say whatever they want but the truth is something entirely different. A very senior railway official engaged in the relief work confessed that the toll may be 50,000. An expert on the flood, while talking to this scribe on August 25, put the toll well over one lakh. But now unconfirmed reports say that the toll may be as high as five lakhs as many of the victims are simply starving to death.