Title - Kosi water discharge level dips at Birpur

PURNIA: Kosi engineers and civil authorities got a breather as turbulent Kosi river's discharge level, which having peaked to the season's highest at 1,88,230 cusec in the downstream at Birpur (Supaul) barrage in the evening on Thursday, and 1,32,500 cusec at 1 pm at Barahkhestra in Nepal, was showing downwards trend on FridayThe water discharge level was 1,14,800 cusec and 1,07,800 cusec at Birpur and Barahkhestra respectively at 10am on Friday, to the great relief of those in-charge of protecting the eastern and western embankment. The water discharge trends point towards a down-swing on Friday, according to senior engineers. The sudden upsurge in the water discharge level on Thursday created a huge flutter sending shivers down the spine of engineers and civil authorities at Birpur and Supaul.Kosi superintending engineer (SE) M P Thakur, however, said that round the clock patrolling on the embankment is continuing and the engineers and others are on their toes. "We are fully geared up to meet any eventuality, with boulders, sand bags etc. sufficiently stockpiled alongside the embankments. We also have enough generator sets for the emergency light in the event of a crisis," the SE told TOI on Friday.As the quirky and unpredictable Kosi waters made a quantum jump on Thursday, many villages came within its annual sweep.

The spill-over of water submerged low lying areas in many villages of Baltharwa, Kataiya, Baneniya, Ithari, Sanpataha , Gauripatti , Laukaha, Takiya and Ugripatti, causing concern to the villagers, who have learnt to live with such annual ordeal.

Supaul additional district magistrate (ADM) and in-charge disaster management, Ram Bilas Chowdhury, however, said they are yet to get any report about some villages getting flooded. The BDOs and COs have been asked to send their report on the situation immediately, the ADM said. Meanwhile, though the water level of Kosi has gone up, the erosion threat to the rail track at 15/6.8 km near Fango halt on Saharsa-Mansi rail section in East Central Railway (ECR ) has been bridled to an extent, rail engineers claimed on Friday. The rail engineers are still carrying out mammoth anti-erosion work to protect the rail track. If the rail track is damaged, Kosi division with a population of over 50 lakhs will be cut off from the rest of Bihar. Round the clock work on boulder crating is still in progress, and host of rail engineers and workforces are camping at the vulnerable site, rail engineers said.

Samastipur senior divisional engineer (ECR) R R Singh said on Friday that there is no let-up in the anti-erosion operation. The anti-erosion activities were taken up four days back. Even as the erosion threat looms large, train services on Saharsa-Mansi section of ECR have not been affected till date, according to Saharsa station superintendent (SS) R N Singh.