By IANS
Guwahati : Large swathes of Assam were flooded Sunday displacing thousands of people, taking the total number of those rendered homeless by the devastating floods to 7.2 million since July, officials said.
A Central Water Commission bulletin said the main Brahmaputra river and its tributaries were flowing above the danger level in at least 19 places and in full spate.
Cachar, Karimganj, Hailakandi, Dhemaji, North Lakhimpur, Golaghat and Sivasagar districts of the state were the worst affected, the Assam government said in a press release.
“The flood situation has deteriorated with most of the rivers flowing above the danger mark and rains continuing to lash the state,” Bhumidhar Barman, Assam’s Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation Minister told IANS.
Close to 100,000 people were now sheltered in makeshift relief camps in the third wave of floods that began Wednesday.
An Assam government statement said nearly 7.2 million people have been displaced since July with a total land area of 1.3 million hectares affected, including nearly 4.1 million hectares of cropland.
“A total of 53 people have been drowned in separate incidents since July,” the statement said.
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 into the Bay of Bengal.
Every year, the floods in Assam leave a trail of destruction, washing away villages, submerging paddy fields and drowning livestock besides causing loss of human life and property.
In 2004, more than 200 people were killed in the floods in Assam.