According to official sources, the embankment was repaired and strengthened last year.

However, villagers claim they had informed officials about a six-inch wide hole in the embankment. But no move was initiated to repair it.

Nitish Kumar has ordered a probe and promised stern action against erring officials.

Dozens of villages in Aurai and Katra blocks of Muzaffarpur district were also flooded after the Bagmati breached its embankment at three places Saturday. It was reported that several villages in Darbhanga district were also flooded.

Major rivers in north Bihar, especially the Kosi, Gandak, Budhi and Bagmati are in spate following heavy rains in their catchment areas. With heavy rainfall recorded in the catchments areas in neighbouring Nepal, the water levels of these rivers have been rising to dangerous levels for the last four to five days.

'The Bagmati has crossed the danger mark at some points and the water level in Gandak has also increased following water discharge into the river from Nepal,' an official of the Central Water Commission said.

The fear of a repeat of last year's devastating floods is haunting thousands of people in the region through which the Kosi river flows. More than three million people were rendered homeless when the river breached its bank upstream in Nepal and changed course August 2008, flooding large tracts of land.