About 700 Madrassa students in North Bihar trapped in flood water

Betiyah(West Champaran),Aug 2(UNI) About 700 students of one of the largest Madrassas in Bihar at Majeria near here were trapped in the rising flood waters following the breach of a major embankment of the Pipra-Piparsi river yesterday inundating the entire block.

According to Block Development Officer(BDO) Dinesh Kumar, the entire Madrassa which has about 1,000 students from all across Bihar as well as from West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra had gone under chest deep water after about 25 feet long embankment of the mighty river gave way following incessent rain for the past few days.

While about 300 senior students could escape, about 700 others mostly in the age group of seven to eleven remained trapped inside the Madrassa, the BDO said adding that however, arrangements were being made to supply them food and water on priority basis before trying to rescue them to safer places.

A number of country made boats had already been pressed into service to provide succour not only to the trapped Madrassa students, but also to all nearby villagers whose houses were also inundated because of the flash floods.

Moreover, he said, two people including a 75 year old farmer were killed after their boat drowned in the swirling water of the rainfed Singha river at Nawal yesterday. So far the body of one of the victims could be fished out from the downsteram of the mighty river.

Meanwhile, official sources said, more than 300 villages in nine blocks of the district had so far been affected by flood water rendering more than 300,000 people homeless. However, the district administration was fully geared up to meet the challenges by rescuing people to safer places and providing succour to all.

More than 30 boats had been pressed into service to ferry people and reach relief to the worst affected areas, the sources added.

However, the overall flood situation in North Bihar continued to remain grim for nearly two weeks now despite the level of water started receding in most of the rivers including the Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Kamalasbalan and others. Though official sources claimed that about 1.4 million people had so far been affected in the current fury of floods, unofficials sources put the figures to more than four million.

As many as 63 people had also lost their lives in one of the most devastating floods in the state since 1977 when more than 100 people had died in flood waters.

UNI