At least seven people have died in the torrential downpour which has lashed Bihar over the last 48 hours.
The unseasonal showers occurred in the wake of Cyclone Phailin, which made a landfall at Gopalpur along the Odisha coast during the weekend.
While three people were killed in Lalganj block of Vaishali district, two persons died in Kaimur and one each in Madhepura and Khagaria districts. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday held a high-level meeting here to review the preparations to deal with the flood threat and assess the situation.
The heavy rains and gale force winds also caused major disruption to power supply in the state.It resulted in damage to property and standing crops,which were ready for harvest. Almost the whole of North Bihar has been forced to go without power for the last two days as a precautionary measure.
And all the state’s major rivers, including the Ganga, Kosi and Gandak are running in spate.
Now Phailin is headed in a North-Eastern direction thereby putting at risk all the North Bihar districts. “There could be heavy to very heavy rainfall in North and North-East Bihar due to this,” said B N Chaudhary of the India Meteorological Department (IMD),here.
Also, the heavy rain in the catchment area of Nepal may pose the threat of fresh flooding in Kosi, Gandak and other rivers emerging from the Himalayan state.
The districts of Purnia, Supaul, Saharsa, Madhepura, Darbhanga, Samastipur and Sitamarhi could be worst hit
A team of NDRF has been sent to Gaya and Ara from here and four more teams have been rushed to North Bihar following the threat to the embankments of rivers.
MET sources said that Bihar recorded 125.3 mm rain on an average during the past two days in place of normal rain of 3.2 mm at this time of the year.