 Experts blame the plight of villages like Barabih on the haphazard construction of anti-flood embankments in Bihar, which has a reputation as one of India's most lawless, corrupt and impoverished states. In 1952, Bihar had 160 kilometres of embankments and the flood-prone area was 2.5 million hectares, said development expert Eklavya Prasad. "But by 2002 the state developed 3,430 kilometres of these structures and the flood-prone area extended up to 6.88 million hectares," Prasad told The Hindustan Times. Photo courtesy AFP. |
Thousands of villages in India's Bihar state have been flooded for the last two weeks, but one hamlet has been under at least a foot of water for the last 12 years. Since 1995, Barabih residents have either got used to living with floods, or left. In fact about 75 percent of the population has fled, leaving behind 1,400 hardy souls.
The heaviest monsoon rains in some 30 years have made life unbearable, even if some locals admit they are used to surviving with water everywhere.
The inhabitants blame the perma-flood on an embankment built by other village clusters nearby to ward off the annual inundations that plague Bihar.
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