Patna, Sept. 2: Were rats responsible for the floods in north Bihar this time? The question has become a million dollar one, which the Bihar government is trying hard to answer.

The issue has snowballed after water resources minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh a.k.a. Lalan Singh first said rat holes have become a major problem for embankments along rivers by causing seepage and endangering them, but clarified today that very heavy rainfall was the actual cause.

As per senior officials of the water resources department (WRD), the embankment along Kamla Balan river in Darbhanga district got breached at Baur in Ghanshyampur block at three places due to rat holes and seepage of river water through them.

The ensuing floods affected over 21 lakh people in the district, snuffed out 37 lives, displaced 9,000 people and caused vast damage to property and crops. At present, work is on at war footing, but WRD engineers have so far managed to fill just one of them.

Accepting that very large number of rat holes on embankments have become a major problem, WRD principal secretary Arun Kumar Singh said at least 10,000 of such holes have been plugged by his personnel this year.

'The problem is more where villages have settled along embankments. Eating there, storage of grains and fodder on embankments, living with cattle are the things that attract rats. This problem is comparatively less where people do not stay on embankments, for example those constructed along Kosi river,' Arun added.

Lalan also accepts that seepage occurred at several embankments due to rat holes and his department has been working to plug them, but asserts that the disastrous floods came because of 600 to 700mm rainfall within 72 hours in Nepal and 300mm concurrent rainfall in the same period in eastern districts - Purnea, Araria, Katihar, Kishanganj, Supaul, Madhepura.

'This very heavy rainfall in the catchment areas of rivers in Nepal and in our own state brought a deluge. The areas close to Nepal were mainly affected,' Lalan said.

Coming back to rodents and their abodes on the embankments, Lalan said: 'I never said the floods came due to rats, I said rats are a problem and we were addressing it.'

The minister asserted that the problem was so serious that 'the principal secretary of my department had to camp in Samastipur district from August 20 till today. Large number of seepages on 73km long embankment along the Bagmati river between Hayaghat and Karachim (in Darbhanga district), but were plugged.'

'Am I not supposed to tell the truth if we are facing problems due to rat holes on embankments,' Lalan asked and invited media persons to go with his officials and see for themselves how many such holes have been plugged.