Bihar has recorded more than 52 boat capsizing deaths in three years

A rescue operation is underway to trace all the missing persons on board a boat that capsized in the Ganga river a day ago, leading to the death of at least 13 children, in Hajipur, Vaishali district of Bihar, Wednesday, October 14, 2026. | Photo credit: PTI

The Vaishali creaking boat tragedy in Bihar’s Raghopur area on the night of October 13 has claimed 30 boat capsizing lives in Bihar since October 13, 2026 – almost double the number recorded in 2025 and four times the number recorded in 2024.

Also read | The boat that capsized in Bihar had a hole and was overloaded, police say

Data from the State Disaster Management Authority (DMD) shows eight such boat tragedies in 2026, four in 2025 and six in 2024. In the last three years, Bihar has witnessed 18 such boat tragedies claiming more than 52 lives.

In 2026, 30 people died in boat capsizing accidents across Bihar, including 13 on Tuesday night in Rampur-Shyamchand village of Raghopur block in Vaishali district. The state recorded 17 such deaths in 2025 and seven in 2024. However, ministry officials said on condition of anonymity that the actual death toll could be several times higher than the official figures.

The NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) reported that as many as 421 people died in boat capsizing accidents in Bihar in the last decade, from 2012 to 2021. This figure represents 12.2% of the total national number of such deaths.

This year, there have been incidents of overturning of rural-made boat in districts like Barari ghat (river bank) in Bhagalpur, Sultanpur diara (river) under Mohiuddinnagar block in Samastipur, Tesaria in Vaishali, Supaul, Katihar, East Champaran, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Laokhisarai and even in Patokhisarai, Shenga.

Most of such squealing incidents of boat overturning have happened across the state during the monsoons of September and October, when river levels rise to dangerous levels.

“But this latest incident at Raghopur in Vaishali district occurred when a young boatman could not catch the deep water level at some places in the Ganga river, on the village side,” Mahendra Kumar Yadav, a social activist working in the flood-prone Kosi region of north Bihar, told The Hindu. “Hundreds of villages in the Kosi region still rely on sailing boats because they still lack all-weather roads,” he claimed.

In 2008. The Kosi region of North Bihar was devastated by a flash flood in the Kosi River, which is also called the “sorrow of Bihar”. Hundreds of people died and several others were displaced, and roads and bridges were swept away at the time, so that agricultural fields were then flooded with sand, adding to the suffering of farmers in the region.

Congestion and overcrowding in such creaking rural boats in remote areas are common as locals have no other option to cross from one place to another,” he added.

Also in Raghopur’s Rampur-Shyamchand village, a creaking country boat was reportedly overcrowded with about 20-30 people and District Magistrate Varsha Singh has now ordered an inquiry into it.

Since the water level in the river Ganga rose to dangerous levels in the recent flood-like situation, the district administration stopped plying of rural boats in the area after sunset, but local villagers took the fateful boat ride at 8:30 am on October 13 to hold a shraddh (post-funeral ritual feast) in a village nearly a kilometer away.

The village boat was also said to have a hole through which water gradually poured into it, making it a fatal boat ride for the passengers, mostly children.

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

Published – 15 Oct 2026 11:10 AM IST