The death toll in the northeast floods rose to 71 on Sunday, with nine more deaths reported in the last 24 hours. Four people have also gone missing.
“Three people died in landslides, while six deaths were due to floods,” an Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) official said.
The number of flood-hit people in the state went up from about 30 lakh on Saturday to 42 lakh by Sunday evening, the ASDM’s latest bulletin said. It said that 5,137 villages across the state’s 33 districts have been affected. Barpeta is the worst-hit district with 12.76 lakh people marooned.
Two Class X students are feared to have been swept away at Rangia in lower Assam’s Kamrup district on Sunday, when they went to take a dip in a flooded low-lying area, even as their friends continued to videograph the incident. The duo remained untraceable until late evening.
In another incident, three more people, including a woman, were killed in a landslide at the Borakhai Tea Estate in Cachar district, as extremely heavy rain lashed the region triggering the second wave of floods of the season in Barak Valley.
In Arunachal Pradesh, a 16-year-old promising boxer was killed in a landslide triggered by heavy rain near the capital, Itanagar. He was on his way to participate in a boxing selection trial in Itanagar when the incident took place at Sood village.
Four people crossing the Brahmaputra in a boat went missing after the single-engine vessel capsized in the swelling river in Rohmoria area of Dibrugarh district. The incident took place around 10am when the boat with nine people onboard, including the boatman and his helper, was going 7km away to Balijan ghat from Polobhonga Chapori, a remote sandbar located in the middle of the Brahmaputra.
A police officer said a house came crumbling down under the weight of a hillock in Cachar when the family members were fast asleep. The SDRF, which rushed to the spot, exhumed two bodies from the debris. The victims were identified as Shampa Ree, 18, and her father-in-law, Shibu Ree, 50. The other members of the family were rescued unhurt, the sources said.
According to the flood advisory of the Central Water Commission, the Kopili, a major tributary of the Brahmaputra, is flowing in “extreme flood stage” at Kampur in Nagaon district of central Assam.
The water level at Kampur is 0.33 metres above its previous highest flood level of 61.79 metres. River Puthimari in lower Assam is also flowing in “extreme flood stage” in Nalbari district of lower Assam, with a rising trend of 0.01 metres above its previous highest flood level of 144.43 metres, the CWC said. The two tributaries have rendered thousands of families homeless. Vehicular movement came to a grinding halt as floodwater of the Madhura river, a tributary of the Barak, spilled into the Silchar-Kumbhirgram Road in Gossipur, which connects Cachar with Silchar airport.
