Guwahati– Flash floods and heavy rains have led to lakhs of people being affected in Assam, due to the rising waters of Saralbhanga River and other major tributaries of the Brahmaputra River, as the Indian Army has now launched major relief operations in the north-eastern state.
Two flood relief columns of the Army’s Red Horn Division have been deployed in Kokrajhar and Chirang districts, with boats and relief material in affected areas. A column consists of about 40 soldiers led by an officer, boats, life jackets and other flood relief stores.
Nearly three lakh people have been affected in 13 districts of the state, and the Brahmaputra is flowing above the danger mark in the Jorhat and Dibrugarh districts.
Lower Assam’s Kokrajhar and Bongaigoan are the worst-affected districts, 611 villages are flooded across the state. A total of 27, 087 hectares of crop land are submerged.
124 relief camps have been opened up across the flooded districts, 84 of them are in Kokrajhar. Nearly 85,000 people have taken shelter in these relief camps.
Many roads and bridges have been damaged in the affected districts, but no casualties have been reported yet due to floods.
In neighbouring Meghalaya, a huge landslide at Thansen and Ratachara areas on National Highway Six in the state’s East Jaintia Hills district, has disconnected southern Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, parts of Meghalaya and Manipur from the rest of the country.
Local officials say they are trying to clear the debris as soon as possible.
In the West Garo Hills district of the state, a nine-year-old girl drowned on Tuesday due to a sudden surge in the Ganol River. So far, her body has not been traced. There have also been various landslides on the road to Tura, the most prominent town in the Garo Hills region. However, the national highway from Guwahati to Tura is open for now.