Yaas Cyclone: Steps taken to avert flash floods in Bihar, says minister

PATNA: State water resources department has taken all the precautionary measures to avert any crisis arising due to excess rain caused by cyclone Yaas, minister Sanjay Jha said on Thursday.
Jha said a 24x7 monitoring of all the rivers, particularly the ones of south Bihar, is going on and an alert has already been sounded to all the officers and staff of the department.
“As the cyclone is entering south Bihar via Jharkhand, there is no major threat to the north Bihar rivers. South Bihar rivers require more attention in view of the fact that they can cause flash floods in the event of excess rain,” he said.
The minister added, “Water level of all the south Bihar rivers is being recorded every three hours and disseminated to all the concerned. The engineers of the department have been keeping a constant watch on the latest developments and they are well prepared to take preventive steps if the water is found overtopping any river anywhere in the state.”
The minister said flood protection work has been hampered to some extent owing to the illness of many engineers and other technical staff during the second wave of the Covid pandemic. “Movement of construction materials has also been affected during the lockdown. However, the department is still working on a war footing to save the state from floods. All the flood protection works would be completed by the first week of June,” he said.