Patna, Aug. 18: Floodwaters continued to wreak havoc on north Bihar districts with the death toll touching 153 today.

Though it did not rain today, water discharged from barrages pushed up the level in rivers, affecting 9.97 lakh more people in the past 24 hours. The total number of affected people now stands at 10.08 million people.

The total number of districts hit, however, remains the same - 17 - though six new blocks in Saran have been inundated, affecting thousands of people.

Additional disaster management secretary Anirudh Kumar said: "The latest figures have put the death toll owing to floods at 153 with the maximum (30) in Araria district followed by West Champaran (23) and Sitamarhi (13) and so on. Even the number of people affected by the flood has risen by 9.97 lakh and the number has touched 1,08,19,000 people."

He added that teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) had evacuated 55,707 people in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of people rescued to 4,64,610.

Anirudh said: "Altogether 13,710 houses were damaged and 27 animals have died so far. A total of 1,289 relief camps have been set up in which 3,92,654 people have taken shelter."

Seven army teams with 70 boats and two choppers have been pressed into service to evacuate people. Twenty-eight teams of NDRF with 118 boats are on rescue and relief duty, along with 16 teams of the SDRF with 92 boats.

The water discharge from barrages ensured most rivers, including Bagmati, Kamla Balan, Adhwara, Khiroi, Mahananda and Ghaghra, continued to flow above the danger mark.

The Ganga, too, was swelling at Digha, Gandhi Ghat, Hathidah, Munger, Bhagalpur and Kahalgaon.

An NDRF team saved 15 people trapped in Bihra village in Sitamarhi district last evening. Today, another NDRF team evacuated a pregnant woman, Manju Devi, from Rampur village in Gopalganj district. She delivered a baby girl on the boat. Later, the mother and the newborn were safely shifted to a nearby government hospital in Barauli (Gopalganj).

Agriculture minister Prem Kumar said: "Kharif crops spread across 5,27,550 hectares have been damaged, apart from paddy over 2.90 lakh hectares and corn across 10,227 hectares."

Chief minister Nitish Kumar held crisis management group meetings with officials.

Due to the intensity of the flood in Purnea, Nitish appointed principal agriculture secretary Sudhir Kumar as special divisional commissioner of Purnea division.

Principal agriculture secretary Sudhir Kumar has been made additional commissioner of Purnea division to oversee relief operations. Lakhisarai sub-divisional officer Shailja has been appointed deputy development commissioner of Muzaffarpur, replacing Arvind Kumar Verma. Lakhisarai district magistrate Avanish Kumar has been transferred within a fortnight of his posting.

RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha, along with MP Ram Kumar Sharma, MLA Sudhanshu Shekhar and MLC Sanjeev Shyam Singh met Nitish to hand one-month salary each to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.

JDU MLA Shyam Rajak also donated his month's salary of Rs 81,000 to the fund.