Assam flood scene turns critical, 2 killed

Flood situation in Assam turned serious on Monday with water levels rising alarmingly in the Brahmaputra and its tributaries. Two persons are reported killed due to floods. 

An official report said rivers are overflowing in Kamrup, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Sonitpur, Nagaon, Morigaon, Dibrugarh, Nalbari and Barpeta districts following heavy rains in Assam and neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh.  

Situation was turning dangerous in Majuli, the world’s largest inhabited river island, where several villages have been submerged since Sunday.

Several parts of the Kaziranga National Park and the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary have been submerged, forcing animals to move to higher grounds. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) have been pressed into service.

Forecasting no let up in the rainfall in the next two days, the Met office in Guwahati said the south-west monsoon has been active over Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya since Sunday.  

Light to heavy rain have occurred in several areas in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura since Sunday, it said.

The well-marked low pressure area in the northwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining coastal areas of the gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, north coastal Andhra Pradesh and west central Bay of Bengal lay over Odisha and adjoining Gangetic West Bengal and Jharkhand on Sunday evening, it said.

The low pressure now lies over the Gangetic West Bengal and adjoining Jharkhand and Odisha, the weather office said. 

Under the impact, heavy to very heavy rains with extremely heavy downpours would occur at isolated places in Assam and Meghalaya and heavy to very heavy rain in Arunachal Pradesh on Monday, the weatherman said.

The local forecast for Guwahati and its neighbourhood until Tuesday is cloudy sky and continuous light to moderate rain, with heavy to very heavy rain occurring intermittently.

However, incessant rains for the past two days have inundated many important areas of the city. Several sections of the Guwahati-Shillong Road and GN Bordoloi Road, the arterial roads of the capital city, have been covered in water causing traffic snarls on Monday. 

Two persons, including a child, were injured due to landslide in Kharghuli area of the city, while a woman and a child were injured when a wall collapsed due to landslide. Both had been admitted to a nearby hospital, the police said.