India’s Assam battles worst floods in decades (VIDEO)
India’s northeastern state of Assam is battling the worst floods in decades that have left at least 80 dead, millions of hectares submerged, and thousands marooned or displaced.
Assam sees flooding every year in the monsoon season, like many parts of India, but this year they were especially destructive in the state. The flooding, which started around the end of June, intensified last week when the Brahmaputra river, which originates in the Tibetan Himalayas, quickly swelled from intense rainfall.
The Assam State Disaster Management Authority said on Thursday that 212,400 people were affected in the worst-hit districts of Charaideo, Golaghat, Jorhat, and Sivasagar. An RT India crew travelled to the flood-hit areas and captured the destruction and the tears.
“My husband earns a living by driving an e-rickshaw,” a woman told RT. “Our only source of income has been taken away. In just 10 minutes we lost everything.”
In many places, even though the flood waters have receded, people are not able to live inside their homes which are covered in knee-deep mud.
“All the paddy fields we had and the livestock, which were our only source of income, all washed away,” said another local.
Some paddy fields now resemble water bodies. Officials reported that 437 villages are still under water and 17,198 hectares of crops have been damaged across the state.
As figures trickle in, more than 90,000 heads of livestock are also being counted as washed away.
India received 1% more rainfall than the July average. Assam’s chief minister has said that some districts in the state received nearly 500% above normal rainfall in July.
The state administration has set up 112 relief camps and distribution centers across the four districts, providing care to 75,583 affected people, according to reports.
