Assam’s Worst Floods in Decades Leave Thousands Homeless, Survivors Face Long Road to Recovery

For 18-year-old Saline Patro, the afternoon of July 19 started out like many other monsoon days in Assam. But within hours, the floodwaters had taken her family’s home and almost all their possessions. “We had a TV, a cupboard and a sofa. There was nothing. “We could not even save a glass to drink water from,” Patro told BBC Hindi from a relief camp in Jorhat district.

Patro said she first moved her elderly parents and younger brother to higher ground before attempting to save household belongings. When she returned, their house had already been washed away. “The floods took everything from us,” she said.

Floods are not a new phenomenon in Assam. According to the National Flood Commission of India, nearly 40% of the state is flood-prone. The Brahmaputra River and its more than 50 tributaries regularly overflow their banks during the monsoon season, flooding communities across the state’s vast floodplains.

This year, however, the flooding has been particularly severe.

Authorities say that since mid-July, exceptionally heavy rainfall across Assam and neighbouring Nagaland has caused rivers to rise rapidly, overwhelming communities in the state’s eastern districts. The disaster was the worst flooding in Assam in six decades, said state minister Pijush Hazarika.

Government figures show that at least 68 people have died in the past four weeks, including 58 in the past week alone. Some 40 people are still missing, and more than 600,000 residents have been affected. Tens of thousands have fled their homes and are living in temporary relief camps;

Officials said 21 people died in a single 24-hour period on July 21. Most of the victims drowned or floodwaters washed them away, while others died in landslides or collapsed buildings.

Some districts in Assam and Nagaland received rainfall between about 435% and 490% above normal levels, causing rivers to swell at an unprecedented pace, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

Upper Assam was the worst affected, with Jorhat, Sivasagar and Charaideo districts the most affected, where floodwaters submerged roads and bridges and cut off villages, hampering rescue operations.

State officials had been deployed across the worst-hit districts to speed up relief operations, restore essential services and distribute emergency supplies, said Chief Secretary Ravi Kotta.

Among those rescued were Rekhamoni Gogoi and her seven-year-old son, who survived by staying for almost 12 hours in a mango tree after floodwaters submerged their village in Sivasagar district.

It was dark around us. Gogoi told local media that rising waters forced her family to flee a neighbour's house and climb the tree with help from other women in the village. She said she had no hope of living, but she would remain steadfast.

The pair spent the night in the tree with no food or drinkable water. Gogoi recalled her son trying to calm her down by saying they could survive on the leaves of the tree.

They were rescued the next morning and are now in a relief camp waiting for the flood waters to recede.

Experts cite several reasons for the increased severity of flooding in Assam over the years, including deforestation in upstream areas, poorly maintained embankments, sedimentation of the Brahmaputra River, and more intense rainfall linked to climate change.

The state government is now concentrating on rehabilitation as emergency rescue operations are in the recovery phase.

But rebuilding can take years for families like Patro’s. “My parents had been building that house for years,” she said. “I don’t know what we are going to do now,” she said. “We’ll be years building another one.”