Last Mile Standing: A land mass waiting to be gobbled up at Panchanandapur. Picture by Surajit Roy.

Malda, Aug. 30: The Ganga is threatening to join forces with the Pagla and annex the last settlements in the Panchanandapur panchayat area.

Resigned residents of Bazarpara and Mistripara stared helplessly on Sunday morning as the Ganga gouged out chunks of earth as it crept closer to the Pagla, each strike bringing a cluster of about 20 villages closer to doom.

The irrigation department has sought government approval to close culverts along the state highway there and raise the road by packing its surface with sandbags.

The river is now flowing close to the Bangitola-Panchanandapur highway, the last line of defence for the villages, around one-and-a-half feet below the road level.

“The floodwater might obliterate the last villages left in Panchanandapur. We have to plug the culverts and raise the level of the road before the mud embankment between the Ganga and the Pagla falls,” said Pundarikakshya Roy, the executive engineer of the district irrigation department.

Malda has 147 gram panchayats and if Panchanandapur is gobbled up, the number will be 145 by the end of the rainy season. Each gram panchayat comprises at least 22 villages and is spread over 12 sq km. Erosion had wiped off the Jhaubona panchayat area in 2002.

“The Ganga is flowing at 24.34 metres. Once it crosses the 25-metre mark, the danger signal will have to be hoisted. We will be not be able to do anything to contain the water if the rivers merge,” the executive engineer said.