By Zarir Hussain
GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Flash floods in India’s Assam state have killed at least eight people and displaced more than 115,000 after a regional river burst its banks earlier this month following heavy monsoon rains, officials said on Tuesday.
Water from the swollen Brahmaputra River has engulfed nearly 450 villages in 17 districts in the hilly state in northeastern India, inundating large swathes of wildlife sanctuaries as well, officials said. Floods and landslides are common in Assam due to seasonal monsoon showers almost every year.
“Eight people have died in separate incidents of drowning since the first wave of flooding that began a fortnight ago,” said Pijush Hazarika, Assam’s water resources minister, noting that water levels have started receding.
Authorities have set up 85 relief camps across the flood-struck districts, providing temporary shelter for more than 3,500 people. Indian news agency ANI published footage from near Morigaon town in Assam showing homes and huts almost completely submerged in water and locals complaining of food shortages.
“There is difficulty in arranging food. If people want to go to the markets, they face problems as the road is flooded. The crops are also under water,” Mohammad Jahangir, a resident of Morigaon, told ANI.
Almost half of Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, home to the rare one-horned rhino, was covered in waist-deep water, and rhinos, elephants and deer have been forced to seek refuge on roads and in human settlements, officials said.
“One wild buffalo and a hog deer were among six animals drowned so far in this wave of flooding,” said Atul Bora, Assam’s agriculture minister, who is from Kaziranga.
A wildlife warden added: “We are intensifying patrol to ensure that poachers are not able to take advantage of the floods and kill the wildlife.”
(Reporting by Zarir Hussain; Writing by Shivam Patel; Editing by Tom Hogue)
