Bihar records over 52 deaths in boat capsize incidents over three years

The Vaishali creaky boat tragedy in the Raghopur area of Bihar on the night of October 13 has taken the death toll in country-made boat capsizing incidents in Bihar to 30 in 2026 as of October 13 — nearly double the toll recorded in 2025 and four times that of 2024.

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The State Disaster Management Department (DMD) data show eight such boat tragedies in 2026, four in 2025, and six in 2024. Over the past three years, Bihar has witnessed 18 such boat tragedies, claiming more than 52 lives.

In 2026, 30 people have died in boat capsize incidents across Bihar, including 13 in Rampur-Shyamchand village in Vaishali district’s Raghopur block on Tuesday night. The State recorded 17 such deaths in 2025 and seven in 2024. However, department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the actual death toll could be several times higher than the official figures.

The NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) said that as many as 421 people have died in boat-capsize incidents in Bihar in the last one decade, from 2012 to 2021. The figure holds 12.2% of the total national figure of such deaths.

This year, the country-made boat capsize incidents happened in districts like Barari ghat (riverbank) in Bhagalpur, Sultanpur diara (riverine) under Mohiuddinagar block of Samastipur, Tesaria in Vaishali, Supaul, Katihar, East Champaran, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Lakhisarai, Sheohar, Sitamarhi and even in Patna.

Most of such creaky boat-capsize incidents have happened across the State during the monsoon months of September and October when the water level of rivers goes up to a dangerous level.

“But this latest incident in Raghopur of Vaishali district happened as the young boatman could not apprehend the deep water level at some places in the Ganga River stream, following the side of the villages”, Mahendra Kumar Yadav, a social activist working in the flood-prone Kosi area of north Bihar, told The Hindu. “Hundreds of villages in the Kosi area still rely on plying boats as they still lack all-weather roads”, he asserted.

In 2008. Kosi area of north Bihar was devastated by the surging flood water in river Kosi, which is also known as “sorrow of Bihar”. Hundreds of people had died and several others were displaced and roads and bridges were swept away at that time leaving the agricultural fields inundated with sand thereafter, adding misery of farmers there in the region.

Overloading and overcrowding in such creaky country-made boats in remote areas are common as local residents have no other options to ply from one place to another”, he added.

In Rampur-Shyamchand village of Raghopur too the creaky country-made boat was said to be overcrowded with about 20-30 people and the District Magistrate Varsha Singh has now ordered an inquiry into it.

Ever since the water level in the River Ganga had risen to a dangerous level in a recent flood-like situation, the district administration had stopped the plying of country-made boats in the area after sunset, but local villagers took the fatal boat ride at 8:30 night on October 13 to have a shraddh (post-funeral ritual feast) in the adjoining village, nearly a kilometer away.

The country-made boat was also said to have a hole through which water had gradually inundated inside it turning it into a fatal boat ride for the passengers on it, mostly children.

Now, the local politicians and representatives have started visiting the bereaved families of the tragedy and giving them assurances and relief packages. Raghopur MLA and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, reached Patna on October 14 and visited the bereaved families that night. He also demanded an impartial inquiry into the incident.