Patna: Rising waters of river Ganga have flooded the cremation grounds on its banks and Ashok Rajpath has turned into cremation grounds. Ganga is constantly rising one cm ever hour as it crossed danger mark and touched 50.10 cm on Thursday.
For the last couple of days, Ganga crossed the danger mark from Buxar to Bhagalpur inundating residential colonies on its banks. People in Buxar started burning of bodies on the road as traditional cremation grounds (ghats) got flooded. At Maner, people could not cremate the bodies as the swollen Sone river flooded the cremation grounds forcing people to take the bodies to Digha ghat in Patna. Seven bodies were cremated on the road on Thursday.
On Thursday, the Gulbi ghat cremation grounds was under knee deep waters. The electric crematorium installed by Bihar state urban development corporation became non-functional as flood waters entered the area and machine was damaged due to short circuit. The cremation grounds at another famous cremation grounds at Bans Ghat was also reported to be under knee deep water.
Flood affected villagers from the diara (river bank settlements ) migrated from Hasanpur, Sonepur, Bangali Tola in Saran district to Patna Law College hostel at Ranighat with their belongings as their houses were flooded.
Ganga water crossed danger marks in the rural areas of Patna also and inundated Athmalgola town in Barh sub-division. People staying in the marooned village have taken shelter on National highways 31.
District magistrate of Patna, Chandrashekhar Singh said administration has opened 18 relief camps between Maner in the west to Mokama in the east for the flood affected displaced persons.
Officials at Barh said flooded Mahane and Panchane rivers have reached one km away from National highways and 11 wards of the Barh sub-divisional town are submerged.
Ganga river waters entered the headquarters of Ganga water commission at 4 pm today.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar visited several banks on the Ganga and reviewed the latest flood situation. At Kangan ghat opposite Takht Harimandir Saheb, Nitish Kumar personally experienced the sudden rise in the water level of Ganga.
Chief minister later talked to district magistrates of 13 flood affected districts and directed then to start relief and rescue measures immediately. He asked them to provide free government boats for rescue of the people from marooned areas. Over 2.5 crores people remain affected by floods in the state.
On Thursday evening, Punpun river crossed all time high of 52.35 cm, submerging half a dozen villages. River Sone which was flowing much above red signal at Sripalpur has flooded Maner and Bihta towns.
