Amid heavy rainfall warning, central team to visit floods-hit Bihar to review situation

NEW DELHI: A central government team is likely to visit Bihar on Friday to review floods situation across the state amid heavy rainfall warning by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). According to reports, the inter-ministerial team of the central government is being led by G Ramesh Kumar, Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry.

The team will visit parts of Bihar to asses the situation and the relief and rescue operations being carried out by various central and state government agencies here. 

At least 73 people have died due to rain-related incidents across the state.  

Even as Bihar continues to be under the deluge, the weather department on Thursday issued a ''heavy rainfall'' warning for the next 48 hours across the state. 

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The weather office predicted ''heavy rainfall'' accompanied by thunderstorm and lightning in Bihar for Thursday and said that the condition is likely to be the same on Friday as well. 

An orange alert has also been issued in Patna, which has been worst-hit due to floods, Vaishali, Begusarai, and Khagaria districts for October 3 and 4.

The Central Water Commission released a statement saying that many rivers in Bihar and other parts of India are over-flowing. In Bihar, Ganga, Kosi, Bagmati, Burhi Gandak, Mahananda, Sone, Adhwara and Punpun rivers are overflowing at present. 

According to the State Disaster Management Department of Bihar, at least 17.09 lakh people have been affected by floods.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has so far rescued over ten thousand people in Patna. The rescue teams have been rowing people across the flooded streets in inflated boats from the past few days. 

Five NDRF teams have been deployed in Patna`s Rajendra Nagar and Kankarbagh alone to assist people amid the flood situation. 

Indian Air Force helicopters have also been dropping relief material to the flood-affected areas.

(With ANI inputs)