By IANS
Guwahati : The army has been called to rescue marooned villagers in Assam after flash floods displaced 800,000 people overnight, taking the total number of people hit by floods since July to eight million and the number killed to 54, officials said Monday.
“The flood situation has worsened with the Brahmaputra rising menacingly, inundating thousands of villages thereby rendering an estimated 800,000 people homeless since Sunday,” Bhumidhar Barman, Assam revenue, relief and rehabilitation minister, told IANS.
A Central Water Commission bulletin Monday said the Brahmaputra river and its tributaries were flowing above the danger level in at least 17 places and in full spate.
“At least 20 of Assam’s 27 districts are now hit by the third wave of floods that began Wednesday,” the minister said.
Most of the displaced people are now lodged at makeshift shelters in schools and offices, besides on raised embankments.
“We are providing food and medical support to the flood-hit people. This is one of the worst flooding in recent years,” Barman said.
Soldiers in rafts and wooden boats have rescued hundreds of people over the weekend in the worst hit districts of Dhemaji, Dhubri, North Lakhimpur, Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj.
“The army is working overtime in the affected areas and we have kept on standby Indian Air Force helicopters to carry out relief and rescue mission as and when required,” the minister said.
An Assam government statement said a total land area of two million hectares was affected, including nearly 4.8 million hectares of cropland, since July.
“A total of 54 people have been drowned in separate incidents since July,” the statement said.
The swirling floodwaters of the Brahmaputra river have cut a treacherous swathe across Assam breaching at least a dozen vital embankments, besides sweeping away road bridges and stretches of highways.
“Road links in several parts of the state has remained cut off with a number of bridges washed away,” Barman said.
The 2,906-km long Brahmaputra is one of Asia’s longest rivers that traverses its first stretch of 1,625 km in the Tibet region, the next 918 km in India and the remaining 363 km through neighbouring Bangladesh.
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 2004, more than 200 people were killed in floods in Assam.