Loading…
The Ganga at Gandhi Ghat in Patna touched 50.57 metres on 6 September 2026, breaking its previous highest flood level of 50.52 metres set on 21 August.
About 22.42 lakh people have been affected across 12 districts, from Buxar and Bhojpur in the west to Katihar and Bhagalpur in the east.
Relief operations include 190 community kitchens, 1,429 boats, 27 SDRF teams and 10 NDRF teams.
The Gandak, Kosi, Burhi Gandak, Punpun, Bagmati and Ghaghra were all flowing above danger level at one or more points.
East Central Railway cancelled and diverted trains because of high water at a bridge between Punpun and Parsa Bazar on the Patna-Gaya section.
Sets up the National Disaster Management Authority chaired by the Prime Minister, State Disaster Management Authorities chaired by Chief Ministers and District Disaster Management Authorities, and raises the National Disaster Response Force. The SDRF and NDRF teams deployed in Bihar operate within this structure.
Signed on 25 April 1954, it committed India to building the Kosi barrage and embankment system on Nepali territory near Hanumannagar. It is the reason Bihar's flood management depends on an upstream neighbour, and it recurs in questions on India's transboundary river arrangements alongside the Gandak Agreement of 1959.
The apex technical body for water resources, which runs India's flood forecasting network and issues the gauge and danger-level readings that trigger alerts; it functions under the Ministry of Jal Shakti
The specialist response force raised under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and functioning under the Ministry of Home Affairs; ten of its teams are deployed in Bihar
The state-level counterpart raised and deployed by the state government, with 27 teams operating across the affected districts
The Ganga runs west to east across Bihar, collecting Himalayan tributaries that enter from Nepal — the Gandak and Burhi Gandak in the north-west, the Bagmati and Kamla-Balan in the north, the Kosi in the north-east — and the Ghaghra and the south-flowing Punpun and Sone. The Kosi, called the Sorrow of Bihar, carries an exceptional silt load and is prone to avulsion, having shifted its course about 115 km over the past two centuries.
GS Paper 1 > Physical geography: important rivers and drainage. GS Paper 3 > Disaster and disaster management
General Awareness > Indian rivers, current affairs and disaster response agencies
The maximum water level a river has ever reached at a particular gauge site. Crossing it means the reach is beyond recorded experience, so downstream alerts and evacuation follow rather than routine monitoring.
The gauge reading above which a river threatens the surrounding area. It is set by the Central Water Commission for each site and is lower than the HFL.
The abrupt shift of a river to a new channel across its floodplain. The Kosi is the classic Indian example, having moved about 115 km over two centuries — which is why its embankments and its flood behaviour are so hard to fix in place.
The name given to the Kosi for its heavy silt load, its shifting course and its history of destructive floods, including the 2008 Kusaha breach that displaced over two million people.