Flood situation serious in Assam, Silchar city submerged for sixth day, death toll rises to 118

The flood situation in Assam remained grim on Saturday as well and due to this the death toll rose to 118. Silchar city of Cachar district remained submerged for the sixth day as well. The officers provided this information. Ten people have died due to floods and landslides in the last 24 hours, including two each from Barpeta, Dhubri, Karimganj and Udalguri districts and one each from Cachar and Morigaon, officials said.

According to the bulletin issued by the Assam State Management Disaster Authority (AASDMA), the number of flood-affected people in 28 districts has now come down to 33.03 lakh, as against 45.34 lakh in 30 districts yesterday. Officials said there has been a slight improvement in the situation in some districts. The water level of the rivers has reduced to some extent. However, the Brahmaputra in Dhubri and the Kopili river in Nagaon were flowing above the danger mark.

Deputy Commissioner Kirti Jalli said that the Cachar district administration is carrying out rescue operations in Silchar with priority to take the sick to the hospital. Food packets, drinking water bottles and other essentials are being distributed in the city with the help of helicopters of the Indian Air Force and this work will continue till the situation improves, he said. Along with providing relief material to the flood-affected people, two drones have also been deployed in Silchar to monitor the flood situation.

Eight teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) with 207 personnel arriving from Itanagar and Bhubaneshwar and an army unit of 120 personnel and nine boats brought from Dimapur have been deployed in Silchar. Officials said that around three lakh people in Silchar are facing acute shortage of food, clean drinking water and medicines.

According to the ASDMA bulletin, the most flood-affected district in the state is Barpeta, where 8,76,842 people are in trouble. After this, 3,99,945 people are in trouble in Nagaon (5,08,475), Kamrup (4,01,512) and Dhubri. It said that 93 revenue circles and 3,510 villages have been affected by the floods, while 2,65,788 people have taken shelter in 717 relief camps. Relief materials were distributed from 409 relief centers among the flood-affected people who did not take shelter in the camps.

ASDMA said that a total of 312 houses have been damaged during the last 24 hours. The bulletin said that massive landslides have been reported from several places including Baksa, Vishwanath, Bongaigaon, Chirang, Dibrugarh, Darang, Golaghat, Hailakandi and Kamrup.