Floods in Bihar submerged 1,000 villages, affecting more than 4 million people

Patna Ta. Thursday 30 July 2020

Reports of more than a thousand villages being submerged in the catastrophic floods in Bihar have raised concerns among the people as well as the ruling party. With the Bihar Assembly elections looming, the ruling JDU feared that the people would disassociate themselves from the ruling party in the wake of this natural calamity.

A Bihar state government spokesman said three more people were reported dead. All three died in Darbhanga district. The official death toll from the floods rose to 11. This figure could be much higher, according to unofficial figures. A total of one thousand villages in Bihar's Bar district were in danger of being submerged in the flood waters. In some places, relief teams have not yet arrived.

A spokesperson for the Bihar Disaster Ministry claimed that the state government had deposited Rs 6,000 in the bank accounts of each of the 60,000 flood-hit families. The relief will be credited to the accounts of another 40,000 people on Thursday. The relief amount will reach all the flood victims by August 8. Opposition groups called for a boycott of the polls, saying "how can the flood victims get to the bank to get money and how much relief can those who have lost their homes and belongings get by getting Rs 6,000?"

A government spokesman also claimed that more than three lakh people were being evacuated to relief camps. More than twenty-five thousand families had reached the relief camp. In addition to the National Disaster Force, the state's Disaster Force was working around the clock to deliver more people to relief camps.