Floods displace 600,000 people in Assam
By IANS
Guwahati : The army and paramilitary troopers were kept on standby in Assam Friday as flash floods triggered by whipping monsoon rains displaced 600,000 people.
"The overall flood situation is grim with all the rivers and their tributaries in full spate. We have asked the army and other security and civil agencies to be on standby to rescue marooned villagers when required," Bhumidhar Barman, Assam revenue, relief and rehabilitation minister, told IANS.
A government statement Friday said about 600,000 people were hit by the floods in 12 of Assam's 27 districts since the past week.
The worst hit by floods is eastern Dhemaji district where authorities Friday evacuated nearly 30,000 people using boats and alerting people to vacate their homes through early warning systems sounded by the Disaster Management Department.
"About 650,000 people from 300 villages have been hit by the floods with the situation threatening to get even worse with five major rivers in the district flowing much above the danger mark," Dhemaji district magistrate D.N. Mishra told IANS by telephone.
Authorities in Dhemaji district alone have set up more than 1,000 makeshift shelters for the displaced villagers.
"We have been providing food and other supplies, including medicines, to the flood affected people," Mishra said.
According to a Central Water Commission bulletin, the main Brahmaputra river was flowing above the danger level in at least 15 places in Assam.
"In several places, the Brahmaputra has been flowing at least a metre above the danger level and still maintaining a rising trend," a government flood bulletin said.
The Regional Meteorological Centre here Friday warned of more rain and thundershowers in the next 24 hours.
"We are taking all preventive measures and strengthening dykes and embankments from getting breached," state Water Resources Minister Bharat Narah told IANS.
The 2,906 km long Brahmaputra is one of Asia's largest rivers that traverses its first stretch of 1,625 km in China's Tibet region, the next 918 km in India and the remaining 363 km through neighbouring Bangladesh before converging with the Ganga and flowing into the Bay of Bengal.
Every year the floods leave a trail of destruction, washing away villages, submerging paddy fields, drowning livestock, besides causing loss of human life and property, in the northeastern state of 26 million.
The monsoon was scattered in Assam last year thereby sparing millions of people from the ravaging floods. In 2004, at least 200 people died and more than 12 million were displaced in the floods.