Deadly Bihar flood river diverted

By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Kathmandu

The river responsible for floods that displaced millions of people in India and Nepal five months ago has been diverted back to its original course.

The Kosi river burst its man-made embankment in Nepal close to the Indian border in the middle of August and went massively off-course.

Nearly 400 people died in the ensuing floods in India's eastern Bihar state and millions were affected.

Tens of thousands of people in Nepal were left homeless in the floods.

Restoring the Kosi to its old route has involved a team of more than 500 construction staff.

They have worked frantically to build coffer dams out of sandbags, concrete and galvanised wire and thereby restore the man-made embankment that was breached.

They finally managed to re-divert the river late on Monday.

A disaster prevention official in south-east Nepal says all the river water is now flowing along its original channel, far to the west of the new course it had taken since August.

Original channel

For months after the breach, work was impossible; it is only now that water levels have receded enough to enable it to be completed by the Indian company given the job by the government in Delhi.


map

See how the river changed course

For millions of displaced people, however, the suffering will not be over for a long while.

The rerouted Kosi swept across a vast part of the Gangetic plain, destroying millions of homes and killing hundreds of people.

Two months ago the BBC visited the affected part of Nepal, where formerly fertile farmland had become covered in a thick layer of silt and sand and made completely uncultivable.

In both India and Nepal, many thousands of displaced people remain in camps, dependent on outside agencies and local volunteers for help.

Source : BBC News