Flooding in India’s northeastern Assam state has killed at least 50 people and displaced 700,000 after days of heavy monsoon rain that overflowed the Brahmaputra River, officials said Friday.
The river, one of Asia’s largest that originates in China’s Tibet region and flows about 900 kilometers (560 miles) through Assam, flooded villages, swept away homes and forced nearly 300,000 people into government-run relief camps, officials said.
Authorities provided food and relief supplies to flood victims including airdrops from helicopters, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
Nearly 900 villages were submerged and more than 7,000 homes were without electricity, he said.
Police, disaster response teams and local volunteers were working to rescue stranded residents and deliver essential supplies to flood-hit communities, officials said.
Jatin Gogoi, a 52-year-old farmer from Nazira, said the rising waters swept away his bamboo-walled home and destroyed his livelihood.
“I lost all my cattle. My five-member family and I have nowhere to go, so we are taking shelter in a relative’s home,” he said over the phone.
Flooding on Thursday evening disrupted parts of Guwahati, Assam’s capital with about 2 million residents, as submerged roads left commuters stranded for hours.
“I had to stay overnight at my office. The roads were filled with water, some waist deep,” said Sudip Mazumdar, a journalist in Guwahati.
Experts say human-caused climate change is intensifying South Asia’s monsoons, which traditionally run from June to September and again from October to December. The rains, once predictable, now arrive in erratic bursts that dump extreme amounts of water in short periods, followed by dry spells.
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