Agencies/Guwahati
At least 79 people have died and 2.2mn forced to leave their homes over the last week as torrential monsoon rains triggered floods across the northeastern state of Assam, officials said yesterday.
Flood-affected people gather under an Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter carrying relief materials in Assam yesterday
The massive Brahmaputra river has breached its banks in Assam, which borders Bhutan and Bangladesh. Extensive flooding has also hit the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya.
The Assam state government said 26 of 27 districts had endured flash floods as heavy rains destroyed thousands of flimsy homes, blocked roads and swamped fields.
“The people of Assam are facing one of the worst floods in recent times that has inflicted considerable damage,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in the state capital Guwahati after touring the area by helicopter.
“The central and state governments are doing everything possible to provide relief to the people,” he added.
Floods have hit Assam - a state famous for its hilly tea-growing areas - at the same time that much of India has suffered weaker-than-average monsoon rains that are crucial to its hundreds of millions of farmers.
Hundreds of soldiers and rescue workers from the federal National Disaster Response Force have been deployed for rescue and relief efforts, while military helicopters have airlifted people and dropped food.
“Once we complete rescue and relief operations our focus will shift to restoration of damaged caused by floods,” Singh said.
He announced Rs100,000 compensation to each of the families whose members died in the floods.
The prime minister, who is a Rajya Sabha member from Assam, also assured the state of efforts to restore the railway line in the Lumding-Badarpur Hill section of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR).
The railway ministry has already been instructed to take up immediate steps to restore the line as it is a lifeline for the people in Assam’s Barak Valley, as well as neighbouring Mizoram and Tripura.
Rain has stopped, but many rivers remains dangerously high.
The Assam government said in a statement that an estimated 2.2mn people had been displaced, with thousands of homes wrecked and more than 500,000 people being sheltered in relief camps.
“So far 79 people have died in separate incidents of boat capsize or have drowned while trying to escape the gushing waters and also in landslides,” it said.
“We have opened makeshift relief camps for the displaced, while many more were forced to take shelter on raised platforms and in tarpaulin tents,” Assam’s Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
Officials said more than 70% of the Kaziranga National Park, famous for its tigers, one-horned rhinos and elephants, was submerged.
“The animals are trying to move to safer areas,” park warden Sanjib Bora said.
Poachers have already killed one rhino that had strayed from the park and took away its horn, foresters said.
In the adjoining states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya, monsoon rains caused widespread flooding but there were no reported deaths.
