Through a long and sleepless night, Prasanta Borthakur’s family, including his 95-year-old father, spent hours perched on chairs they had placed on their beds as flood waters entered their house in Nazira, in Assam’s Sivasagar district.
The water had begun to rise rapidly between 5 pm and 7 pm on Sunday evening, and soon, it had entered their home in the Rajapul area and rose up to their chests. After sending out frantic calls and distress messages through the evening and night, a National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team reached them on a boat on Monday morning and evacuated them.
“Ours is the highest house in Rajapul, and till date, we have never had water enter our house. Forget in my lifetime, my father said that he has never seen such flooding in his 95 years. Our whole village went underwater, and everybody spent their night like us, or on the roofs of their houses, or even on trees,” said 50-year-old Borthakur.
What unfolded in their village over Sunday and Monday was only the start of days of unprecedented flooding across the Upper Assam districts of Sivasagar, Charaideo, Jorhat and Golaghat. The flooding has been spreading to new areas of the region every day, and has claimed 27 lives so far. Within a span of 24 hours on Monday, 21 people lost their lives.
2 lakh more affected in span of a day
According to estimates by the Assam State Disaster Management Authority, the number of people affected by the floods rose from 3.6 lakh on Monday to 5.6 lakh on Tuesday, signalling the rapid deterioration of the situation.
As of Tuesday night, a total of 6,101 people were evacuated by boats, with 5,764 of them being from Sivasagar. As many as 12,284 people were staying in relief camps across seven districts of Assam.
Floods inundate vast swathes of Assam every year, displacing lakhs of people. But the floods currently engulfing parts of Upper Assam are unprecedented in this belt, which does not usually experience this magnitude of flooding as it is located considerably inland from the banks of the Brahmaputra.
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This time, the Brahmaputra’s tributaries running through these districts, such as the Dikhow, Disang and Janji, have swelled up and inundated large swathes of the region.
‘Never-seen-before’ flooding
By Tuesday evening and on Wednesday, the floods had reached Sivasagar town and rose up to waist level.
“I have never in my life seen this kind of flooding here,” said 53-year-old Nasimuddin Ahmen, who works in a government office in the town.
“The small river, Darika, which flows a few kilometres from the town, has now overflowed. Every year when it rains, there is some waterlogging, but this is the first time that the river has reached the town. It has reached my backyard, and I have not been able to step out of home today,” he said.
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Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has attributed the floods in the region to a “cloudburst” in Nagaland’s Mon district, which is located upstream from these tributaries. He had earlier said that the floods had resulted in “water levels unseen in half a century”.
A scientist at the Meteorological Centre in Kohima said the rainfall in Mon does not technically qualify as a cloudburst, which the IMD defines as rainfall exceeding 100 mm within one hour. However, the district did experience a heavy spell of over 130 mm rainfall on Sunday.
“On Sunday, we had 137 mm of rainfall in Mon, which took place over a period of eight to nine hours. What happened is that in the 15-20 days before it, it received three-four spells of heavy rainfall, because of which the mountains were already saturated with water. The spell that took place on Sunday then triggered this,” he said. Mon itself was devastated by the rainfall, with nine people losing their lives to landslides.
Opposition questions preparedness
With the Opposition questioning the government over its preparedness for these floods, including in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, the government has maintained that “no one could be prepared” for what ministers have described as a “calamity”.
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Minister of Water Resources Susanta Borgohain told The Indian Express: “We have not had this kind of situation here earlier. The amount of rain released in Nagaland all went down to the foothill areas of Charaideo and Nazira. There has not been a breach of embankments. Instead, the water levels have completely overtopped them (meaning the water levels have crossed the tops of the embankments). And now it is draining towards the Brahmaputra in an unorthodox route, moving towards it not only through the tributaries but over free land.”
The NDRF, the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the Indian Army, district administrations and Fire and Emergency Services have all been pressed into rescue and relief work. According to officials, helicopters are also being used to airdrop supplies to areas that are currently inaccessible even by boat. They said that on Wednesday, drones have also begun to be used for the purpose.
Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) CEO L Sweety Changsan said that as the water flows towards the Brahmaputra, it is spreading to new areas every day.
“We are doubling down on all relief efforts… This kind of flooding in this area has not been heard of. But there was torrential rain in neighbouring hill states, as well as localised rainfall. In Charaideo district, we are in a 436% departure from normal rainfall. Later, we need to analyse what other factors are there, maybe more deforestation, maybe an El Niño effect. But because it is unusual, these places are unprepared, and the people have never seen such flood waters,” she said.