Bihar's Deadly River Crossings: 52 Lives Lost in Three Years of Boat Capsizes
More than 52 people have died in country-made boat capsizing incidents in Bihar over the past three years, according to data from the State Disaster Management Department (DMD), with the latest tragedy in Vaishali district's Raghopur block sharply raising the toll recorded this year.
The boat that capsized on the night of October 13 in Rampur-Shyamchand village, in Raghopur block, was carrying an estimated 20 to 30 people, most of them children. Thirteen deaths were reported from the village, taking the number of deaths in such incidents this year to 30.
Officials said the vessel was overcrowded and had a hole through which water seeped in gradually, filling the boat. District Magistrate Varsha Singh has ordered an inquiry into the incident.
According to DMD data, the State recorded 30 deaths in eight boat tragedies this year, 17 deaths in four incidents last year, and seven deaths in six incidents the year before. Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the actual death toll could be higher than the official figures.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has recorded 421 deaths in boat-capsize incidents in Bihar between 2012 and 2021 — about 12.2% of the national total for such deaths. Incidents this year have been reported from Barari ghat in Bhagalpur, Sultanpur diara in Samastipur district, Tesaria in Vaishali, and from Supaul, Katihar, East Champaran, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Lakhisarai, Sheohar, Sitamarhi and Patna.
Most of these accidents take place during the monsoon months of September and October, when river water levels rise to dangerous heights.
Mahendra Kumar Yadav, a social activist working in the flood-prone Kosi region of north Bihar, told The Hindu that the Raghopur incident occurred because the young boatman could not gauge the depth of the water at some points along the Ganga channel beside the villages.
"Hundreds of villages in the Kosi area still rely on boats because they still lack all-weather roads," he said, adding that overloading and overcrowding are common in remote areas as residents have no other means of travelling from one place to another.
North Bihar's Kosi region was devastated by floods in 2008, when the river known as the "sorrow of Bihar" swept away roads and bridges, killed hundreds of people, displaced many more and left agricultural fields silted with sand.
In Raghopur, the district administration had stopped the plying of country-made boats after sunset once the Ganga rose to dangerous levels in a recent flood-like situation. Villagers, however, set out at 8:30 p.m. on October 13 for a shraddh ritual in a neighbouring village about a kilometre away.
Political leaders have since visited the bereaved families. Raghopur MLA and Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, reached Patna on October 14, met the families that night and demanded an impartial inquiry. Relief packages have been announced for the affected households.
The recurring deaths point to a wider gap between safety regulation and ground reality in Bihar's riverine and diara areas. Thousands of residents depend on small, locally built boats for daily movement, schooling and work, particularly when roads are submerged or absent. Enforcement of safety rules, including limits on passenger numbers and fitness checks for vessels, remains difficult in remote stretches where alternatives are scarce.
