Kosi River of Sorrow
A man used a pump to get fresh drinking water. In Bihar province fresh drinking water is no huge problem. The ground water level is high so most people have easy access to clean drinking water. But every year the floods threaten the peoples livelihoods . Bihar is one of the poorest area's in India and people have trouble coping with the high costs of protecting themselves against the water.
The Kosi river, a mighty tributary of the Himalaya streams, is regarded as holy in the Nepalese and Indian border regions. But each monsoon the river turns into a destructive force of nature, flooding it's banks, sweeping away villages and killing people. Bihar province, which is cut in half by the river, is booming India's poorest region. During the dry season people live off the Kosi's fish and worship the river as a mother Goddess, but they also desperately try to build makeshift dams to stop the inevitable flooding. The Kosi is nicknamed ' river of sorrow' for causing the highest death tolls in Indian floods
