Monsoon rain pounds Assam

Flash floods in Arunachal Pradesh worsen situation in state

The flood situation in Assam worsened on Saturday after the water level of the Subansiri river rose to unprecedented levels in neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh, where incessant rain led to flash floods and landslides.

Meanwhile, the rivers in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were flowing close to the danger mark, the government said on the basis of latest recordings. 

In Arunachal Pradesh, the water of the Subansiri at Daporijo rose to an unprecedented level on Thursday night, after which villages on the river’s banks were submerged. “The water level of the river rose between 6-7 feet on Thursday night but receded Friday morning,” Upper Subansiri DC T Tagu said.

District Information and Public Relation Officer N Namchoom said that the flood water from the Subansiri damaged over 200 dwellings and washed away livestock, while confirming that there was no loss of human life. Daporijo MLA Dikto Yekar, along with panchayat members, on Saturday surveyed the trail of destruction from the flash floods at Sikarijo, Pagarijo, Laila Majnu Colony, Dilidi village, Sippi and Menga. 

Meanwhile, in a domino effect, the situation in Assam’s flood-hit Dhemaji and Lakhimpur districts on Saturday worsened as a result of the Subansiri river in Arunachal Pradesh being in spate.

The toll in the Assam floods rose to three after one person at the Chauldhua village in Lakhimpur was washed away on Friday evening, an official report said on Saturday.The rise in water level in the Brahmaputra, a tributary of the Subansiri river, also forced over 500 families in Lakhimpur to take shelter in relief camps set up by the administration. 

“We had made arrangements to provide shelter to affected families and provide them with necessary relief material,” a senior official of the district administration said.A breach in the embankment of the Jiadhol river, a Brahmaputra tributary, has affected around 10,000 people in Tekjuri. All offshoots of the Brahmaputra were flowing above the danger mark in the district, with a total of nearly 2.15 lakh people affected by the current flood wave, Dhemaji Deputy Commissioner Monalisa Goswami said.

Nearly 1,000 villages have been inundated as a result of the floods in the state, with some of the most severly affected districts being Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Jorhat, Morigaon and Kamrup.Bihar and UP

In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, too, rivers are flowing close to the danger mark, the government said on the basis of latest recordings. The Ministry of Water Resources said that the water level of the Ghagra river in Bihar’s Siwan district, which is in a high-flood situation, increased further on Saturday.

At 6 am, it was flowing at 61.42 metres, 0.6 metre above its danger level of 60.82 and 0.32 metre below its previous Highest Flood Level (HFL) of 61.74 on August 29, 1998, the statement read.

At Gangpur in Siwan, the river was flowing at a level of 57.85 metres with a rising trend, 0.81 metre above its Danger Level of 57.04 and 0.16 metre below its previous HFL of 58.01 recorded on September 18, 1983. Uttar Pradesh, however, had some relief with the waters of the Rapti river, which created havoc in the past few days, receding in Balrampur and was in a moderate flood situation on Friday.

Condoling the loss of life in the flood-hit Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam and Uttarakhand on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a Rs 2 lakh compensation for each victim’s next of kin.

Modi also sanctioned Rs 50,000 for every seriously injured person from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund, a PMO statement said. Floods have ravaged the four states of late. At least 89 people have died in the floods in Uttar Pradesh alone.