Assam Faces Worst Flood Situation in 60 Years
Three districts have borne the brunt of severe flooding that has claimed at least 66 lives in about a week, driven by geographic vulnerability and climatic uncertainty.
Heavy rainfall in the catchment areas of the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers has pushed water levels above the danger mark, inundating large parts of Assam over the past week. The deluge has affected more than 1.2 million people across 20 districts, with Cachar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi in the Barak Valley bearing the brunt of the flooding. The situation worsened after the Katakhal and Kushiyara rivers breached embankments, cutting off road access to several villages and prompting the deployment of NDRF and SDRF teams for rescue operations. Authorities have set up over 300 relief camps as the India Meteorological Department forecasts continued heavy rainfall in the region for the next 48 hours.
Assam is accustomed to annual flooding, but the current deluge has struck three districts that have historically escaped the worst of the Brahmaputra’s fury. Charaideo, Jorhat, and Sivasagar in Upper Assam have borne the brunt this season, with residents stating they have never experienced such inundation in their lifetimes (The Hindu). The state government informed the 126-member Legislative Assembly on July 23 that the situation is the worst in 60 years (The Hindu).
The crisis escalated rapidly after July 19, when floodwaters reached critical levels and began spreading across 856 villages in 12 districts (Indian Express). Close to seven lakh people have been affected, and at least 66 lives have been lost in roughly a week (Indian Express). Entire villages, vast tracts of agricultural land, and major towns such as Sivasagar have been submerged under water well above chest level (Indian Express). More than 1.15 lakh people are sheltering in relief camps, while over 4,400 have been evacuated by boat by the NDRF, Army, SDRF, and local administrations (Indian Express).
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday that the government has yet to reach around 30 percent of areas in the Nazira Assembly constituency and 20 percent in the Sivasagar constituency, even after water levels began to recede (Indian Express). The delay is attributed to layers of sediment several feet high left behind by the retreating water, which have made access by foot or vehicle difficult (Indian Express). As of Friday, the tributaries Dikhow in Sivasagar, Disang at Nanglamoraghat, and Dhansiri at Numaligarh were all flowing at "severe flood situation" levels (Indian Express).
The government initially attributed the flooding to a "cloudburst" in Mon district of neighbouring Nagaland on July 19. However, a scientist at the Meteorological Centre in Kohima told The Indian Express that the area recorded 137 mm of rain over eight to nine hours, which does not meet the India Meteorological Department’s definition of a cloudburst — rainfall exceeding 100 mm within one hour (Indian Express). The heavy rain also triggered multiple landslides in Mon, killing nine people (Indian Express).
Scientists say climatic uncertainty is the "new normal" for Assam and the wider northeastern region, and no part of the state can hope to stay unaffected (The Hindu). Assam’s geography — two valleys named after the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers, surrounded by hill states with narrow outlets into Bangladesh — makes it inherently prone to flooding even when heavy rain falls only in the hills of Arunachal Pradesh or Bhutan (The Hindu). The two valleys are separated by the hills of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao districts. Together, the Brahmaputra and Barak systems have about 120 tributaries and distributaries that carry massive sediment loads, contributing to the Brahmaputra’s expanding floodplain and extensive inundation, a pattern confirmed by satellite imagery from the Copernicus Programme and the Global Flood Mapper of the Indian Institute for Human Settlement (The Hindu). As academician Arupjyoti Saikia noted in The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra, ancient texts regarded Assam as a waterscape (The Hindu). The full extent of the destruction is still unfolding, and authorities have warned the death toll will likely rise as relief teams reach the remaining cut-off areas (Indian Express).
Indian Express·The Hindu