Floods ravage Assam, maroons wildlife park
Brahmaputra river and its tributaries have burst their banks - affecting more than half of the region’s 32 districts
GUWAHATI/HOSUR (TAMIL NADU): Severe floods in India have affected more than 1.6 million people, buried hundreds of villages and almost submerged a national park, forcing wildlife to seek refuge on roads, authorities said on Wednesday.
With the weather office forecasting heavy rain for at least another 48 hours, the outlook is grim for the northeastern tea-growing state of Assam, which suffered its worst floods four years ago that killed 124 people and displaced six million.
“The situation has turned from bad to worse since Tuesday and over a million people have been shifted to relief camps,” Asaam’s Water Resources Minister Keshab Mahanta said.
The Brahmaputra river and its tributaries have burst their banks - affecting more than half of the region’s 32 districts.
Police and rescue workers said at least 12 people had drowned across the state of Assam in recent days.
Animals from the state’s national parks came out onto roads built up on banks and other high ground as the flood inundated forests.
The state has five national parks, including the Kaziranga National Park, which is home to two-thirds of the world’s one- horned rhinoceroses. “More than 80 per cent of the park is under water,” said Suvasis Das, a forestry official in the park.
Forest officials said they have rescued a three-month-old rhino that took shelter in a backyard in a village. At least 20 hog deer were either washed away or drowned.
Assam’s Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal urged authorities to provide safe drinking water to prevent the outbreak of disease.
He announced an ex-gratia of Rs400,000 to the families of each of the deceased and said the amount will be paid this week.
“Flood is the most burning problem of the state. The current flood has affected almost all constituencies and has become a serious problem. It has claimed 12 lives so far and hit nearly 1.6 million people across 19 districts,” he told the Assembly.
The government is closely monitoring the situation and has been holding regular discussions with officials of various departments, mainly those responsible for flood relief and rehabilitation, Sonowal said.
Meanwhile, in South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, three persons were washed away in flash floods following heavy rains, neighbourhoods were inundated and a lake breached in Hosur town, which saw the heaviest rainfall in the past 24 hours in Tamil Nadu even as a top official said arrangements are in place to shift people living in low lying areas here if the rains continued.
A mother and daughter, aged 41 and 13 and a 20-year-old man were washed away by flash floods when they tried to cross a road in SM Nagar in separate incidents around 9pm on Tuesday night.
“The flash flood was due to discharge from a stormwater drain which carried excessive rain water from Karnoor lake. Had they waited for some time the water would have receded,” Hosur SubCollector, K Senthilraj said.
The heavy rains that began last evening lasted for several hours and led to flash floods.
Chandrambigai lake in the town began overflowing since late Tuesday night and inundated neighbourhoods, including KCP Nagar and Manjunathanagar.
Chinna Elathagiri lake in the town breached on Wednesday morning.
In Srinagar, the 300-km long Jammu-Srinagar national highway, the only surface link between Kashmir and rest of the country, was closed for vehicular traffic due to landslides triggered by rains in Ramban district.