There were two Kosis all of a sudden on the afternoon of August 18 when the river breached the embankment.

While the main river course looks almost dried up now, the new channel is still in the making. The breach at Kushaha, 360 km from Patna, is a story of horror. Though the river switched back to its course of 1932, it ended up changing the geography of many districts — Supaul, Araria, Madhepura, Purnea, Saharsa and Katihar. Over 20 lakh people have been marooned.

The roar of the Kosi at the breach, extending up to 3 kilometres, tells not just the story of a natural disaster but also of bureaucratic callousness and carelessness of Bihar engineers, who were content with dropping truckloads of stones at the embankment as a measure of pre-flood arrangement. The breach cannot be repaired for the next five months. Worse, it is feared that it cannot be repaired at all.

People of Kushaha and Sripur villages alleged slow pace of repair between May and July by Kosi Project engineers from Bihar. They accused the Nepal forest officials of taking a commission of Rs 1,500 per truck to carry boulders. “Indian engineers would come here in swanky vehicles, leaving their juniors to save the river from breaching,” said Hari Khanga, a Sripur resident.

Kosi had last breached in 1952 near Nabhatta, Saharsa. Bhartiya Nadighati Manch convenor Bhagwanji Pathak said the river would mellow down only after merging with the Ganga at Khursaila in Katihar. The stray journey of the river is around 325 km from the breach. The Kosi Barrage, 11 km from the breach site, looks irrelevant. All its 56 gates have been opened. These can release only 22,000 cusecs daily as against 1.43 lakh cusecs from the breach.

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