Even as he faked calmness, Dr Shakeel-ur Rahman was in turmoil as he tried to save a two-year-old girl suffering from acute diarrhoea. He needed to put her on intravenous therapy but the doctor and his staff could not locate her veins. With time running short, he gave up, moving the kid to an ambulance to Raghopur Referral Hospital, an apology of a hospital with only six beds, where scores of patients are still lying on the barren floor. He moved on to the next patient in the queue at the Belhi Relief Camp that has more than 50,000 occupants at the moment in the Bihar's flood-stricken Supaul district. "The number of patients, especially those suffering from dysentery with abdominal cramps, is too much. The magnitude is more than we can handle," he says. The receding Kosi waters-the discharge was 70,000 cusec on September 16, down from over 1.5 lakh cusec during the floods in August- have posed an epidemic threat to the displaced villagers. Despite the river maintaining a receding trend, the Bihar authorities cannot relax because it is known to swell to peak by October. In fact, on October 5, 1968, Kosi played havoc as nine lakh cusec of water was discharged in one day alone. Forty years later, nobody has forgotten it. Meanwhile, the Bihar Government has locked horns with the Centre over insufficient relief after the Union Home Ministry said the Rs 1,000-crore grant provided