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At least 97 people have died in floods in Assam, affecting nearly 170,000 people, including thousands forced into temporary shelters as swollen rivers inundate homes and farmland.
Floods across India’s northeast have killed nearly 100 people, according to an official toll update on Friday, with villages buried in mud following one of Assam’s worst deluges in years.
Floodwaters have submerged more than 14,000 hectares of cropland, an area nearly one-and-a-half times the size of Paris.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma posted a video on Friday showing him consoling the parents of a 13-year-old boy who died while trying to rescue his pet dog from floodwaters.
“No parent should ever have to bid farewell to their child,” Sarma wrote.
India’s Health Minister J.P. Nadda, who visited the flood-hit region on Thursday, said the scale of the devastation was “so huge that it will take time” for normality to return.
“Village after village has been submerged,” he told reporters.
Flooding is common in Assam during the June-September monsoon, when the Brahmaputra, India’s biggest river, and its many tributaries overflow.
However, experts say climate change, combined with poorly planned development, is increasing the frequency, severity and impact of such disasters.
Residents and officials have also blamed illegal coal mining in neighbouring Nagaland for worsening the flooding, saying it has affected areas that have not historically been prone to inundation.
Sarma said he would raise the issue with the national government in New Delhi.
Advocacy group Climate Trends said the increasing severity of floods in Assam was “driven by the interaction of global warming, changing river dynamics and growing human exposure”, making them more frequent, complex and costly.
