First Person: Travelling with a Bihar flood victim

RIVER OF SORROW: The dismal condition of relief camps in Bihar has left many victims without any option.

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The dismal condition of relief camps in Bihar has left many victims without any option but to stay in their villages. CNN-IBN correspondent Shreya Dhoundiyal met one such victim and travelled to his village in Singheshwara Block of Madhepura district. Here’s a first person account:

I meet Kamleshwar Singh on the banks of the temperamental Kosi, in Madehepura's Singheshwara block. He had come to the local market to buy provisions for his family and was taking the boat back to his flooded village.

Despite government claims, no relief has reached here.

As I get on the boat, I ask him why he and the others haven't shifted to relief camps.

“It’s worse than an animal farm in those relief camps. How can we leave our loved ones back in village for the relief camps?” he says.

The Kosi has claimed farms, homes, village schools. Not even God has been able to save Leyiyan Devi 's possessions. A packet of biscuit won't help much but it’s all I have,” she says.

Leyiyan Devi tells me the packets of biscuits I've given her are the first meal her grandchildren have had in three days.

Kameshwar's house is on the other end of the village of Rampur. The water has receded so his family doesn't have to live on the road anymore. But there are other concerns.

“The railways station is packed and the trains are full. How can we take 10 families with us?” he wonders.

Thousands are still stranded and it will take the army another 10 days to bring them to safer places. The wrath of the Kosi is yet to run its full course.

Rampur is not completely submerged under water but it is a village facing death and disease. As I leave I wonder if the flood situation in north Bihar is as under control as the state government would like us to believe.