NEW DELHI, May 21: While West and Northern parts of India are facing heat waves, floods and landslides have so far claimed 25 lives across three north-eastern States with Assam being the worst-hit.
According to data provided by the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) on Saturday, four people, including two children, have drowned. The toll due to the disaster has now gone up to nine. Five others had died in a series of landslides since May 14.
On Friday, the body of a woman was retrieved from a landslide zone in Arunachal Pradesh capital Itanagar. She was the eighth victim of several cases of landslips reported across the town, prompting Chief Minister Pema Khandu to ask people to shift from the vulnerable areas.
Three others had died due to flash floods and landslips in Meghalaya earlier. “About 7.12 lakh people have been affected across 29 flood-affected districts, with central Assam’s Nagaon being the worst hit. So far, 74,705 people have been shifted to 234 relief camps,” an ASDMA spokesperson said.
A report received by ASDMA from the Water Resources Department’s Dibrugarh-based assistant executive engineer said “rain cuts and a major slump down” have been observed at a dyke downstream of the Bogibeel rail-road bridge across the Brahmaputra River.
A stretch of more than 2 km near the bridge was affected due to “incessant rainfall and movement of cattle and heavy vehicles”, the report said. The Bogibeel Bridge is considered strategic for communication between areas on the northern and southern banks of the Brahmaputra in eastern Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
The ASDMA report said at least 20 dykes have been breached across Assam and several bridges have either been washed away or damaged. Several roads have caved in or rendered unusable for vehicles while 43,090 houses have been fully or partially damaged across 2,251 flooded villages.
(Manas Dasgupta)