BETTIAH, Aug. 28 -- A large number of people evacuated from vulnerable villages in West Champaran returned home, a day after more than 4,000 people were moved to safer places following the threat of heavy floods due to flash floods in Nepal' Trisula river in the Indo-Tibet border following a glacier outburst on Wednesday morning. Water level had started subsiding in the Gandak barrage till Thursday evening after a discharge of around 1.50 lakh cusec of water on Wednesday midnight A day after staying away from their villages, residents of Jhandu Tola, Bin Toli and Chakdahwa - who were prone to bear the first brunt of the flooding - have returned to their native places and so are residents of Narahwa, Barahwa and Sogi Barwa in West Champaran's Madhubani block, besides Bairiya and Nautan. 26-year-old Pratima Devi's eyes welled up with relief as she stepped back onto the muddy threshold of her home in Jhandu Tola. She hadca harrowing time and had to race against the time with three children and two elderly relatives leaning on sticks. "All of us are finally back in home. I was simply at a loss to decide where to go when announcement for evacuation came. Finally, I decided to leave for a high place near Jhula Pul near Thari in Nepal which was barely 2km from here," said Devi, whose husband was away at work in Gujarat. However, 45-year-old Gulab Ansari, a resident of Chakdahwa along with his neighbouring and co-villagers had a cosy home Utkramit Madhyamik Vidyalay, Bherihari colony near Valmikinagar. "About 250 have taken shelter in school from Chakdahwa, Bin Toli and Jhandu Tola," said Ansari. However, a majority of villagers spentva sleepless night due to anticipation and trepidation of loss to property and belongings back in their villages. Bettiah's sub divisional magistrate (SDM) Vikash Kumar put the number of evacuated people at 700 in Yogapatti, 250 in Bairiya and 70 in Nautan block of West Champaran, while over 250 people had to be evacuated in Piprasi block in Bagaha 1 block. Wasim Akram, circle officer (CO) Bagaha-2 put the number of evacuated people at 1500 from his circle alone. "Yes, the villagers have begun returning to their respective places," said Wasim Akram, CO, Bagaha -2. The development came after district administration in West Champaran, East Champaran, Muzaffarpur and Gopalganj on Wednesday sounded alert, asking the people dwelling in low lying area to move to the safer place in the wake of possible gush of water from Nepal. However, officials in the water resource department witnessed a discharge of 1.5 lakh cusec of water through the Valmikinagar barrage at midnight of Wednesday. "The discharge of water started picking up its momentum around 11pm with 1.5 lakh cusec flowing through the barrage and remained statstic till 12 O' clock before deceasing," said Md. Iqbal Anwar, executive engineer, head works division, Valmikinagar, water resource department, descrbing the situation under control. The officials recorded a discharge of 1.04 lakh cusec at 5pm on Thursday as against maximum discharge recorded this year was 2,24,000 cusecs on July 14, 2026. In 2024, the discharge had reached 5,62,500 cusecs on September 28....