Every year, these rivers bring valuable floods for the people of North Bihar.

Flood waters used to enter the agricultural land, leave their quite fertile silt and recede to the river.

This pattern of humane flood was beneficial for North Bihar, making the land perfectly fertile.

Soon after independence, the Congress Government of Bihar made several attempts to domesticate these rivers.

A breach in the Kosi embankment near the Indo-Nepal border (at Kusha in Nepal) occurred on 18 August 2008.

[23] Villagers in North Bihar ate raw rice and flour mixed with polluted water.

The Supaul district was the worst-hit; surging waters swamped 1,000 square kilometers (247,000 acres) of farmlands, destroying crops.

[25][26][27][28][29] This flood was result of sudden increase in water discharge through the Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Bagmati, Kamla, Kosi and Mahananda Rivers due to heavy rain in the catchment areas of the major rivers of north Bihar in Nepal.