How natural are natural disasters? It is a question that cannot be avoided after the huge and tragic flooding of Bihar by the River Kosi. The river has certainly done something unexpected: instead of flooding its own plains, that is, the plains bordering the curving course it has been following in recent times, it has simply straightened itself out and poured into Bihar from the breach in its embankment in Nepal along the course it used to take, it seems, 200 years ago. It is an area not expecting and not prepared for floods, caught totally off-guard and rendered helpless by the fury of the river. But if people had no idea of the imminent disaster, the same cannot be said of governments. The foreign minister of Nepal’s new government has virtually admitted that Nepal’s workers and contractors were uncooperative when Indian engineers tried to repair a breach in the Kosi barrage when it first occurred. They are working together now, but the damage is already beyond calculation. For Bihar, warning signs were evident since 2004, to go by the tart letter the state has written to the Centre. The state government claims to have completed its anti-erosion work by the middle of June. But the Centre is responsible for overall upkeep of the barrage and the embankment. Major civil work was needed — and asked for — since 2004, when the river flow was hitting the embankment at Kusaha. Expert bodies from the Centre had evidently ignored the danger signals, clearly indicated in satellite images, and a de-silting project had also been rejected by the Centre in 2007. The river breached the weakened Kusaha embankment on August 18. The state government’s letter is in response to the Union water resources development minister’s public accusation that it was responsible for the breach.

Charges and counter-charges mean nothing to the few million who have lost their homes. The nightmare is far from over, for the government is still unable to reach hundreds who are marooned and starving. The death count has just begun. People are still trying to escape, as things worsen with more rains, a further breach in the Jankinagar Branch Canal embankment in Purnia, and with Nepal being forced to release water because of heavy rainfall there. The prime minister has said it is a national calamity. But it is a calamity that could have been avoided, or at least, its scale reduced — that perhaps is the greater tragedy.