All over the country, we have been noticing climatic extremes and human limitations when standing against the nature. While Chennai is parched of water and people are dying over fights for water in Andhra, Mumbai witnessed one of the worst floods this year and so did Assam. Except that Assam, being geographically away from the mainland, did not receive as much nation-wide attention as Mumbai did. But, the situation is dire nonetheless. By Shubhanjana Das
The Brahmaputra River, lifeline of Assam, burst its banks and in the course of the last one week, has wreaked havoc on more than 1,800 villages in the state. More than a million people have been displaced and about 42 lakh affected. As of Monday, July 15, 30 out of 33 districts in the state were submerged, with the death toll has risen to 15. The situation seems to be getting worse with no signs of the downpour stopping and forecasts of further rainfall in the coming days. Of the most affected districts is Barpeta, which witnessed displacement of 7.35 lakh people.
Also, amongst the worst affected is the Kaziranga National Park and the animals who call it their home. More than 80 per cent of the park and 95 camps are under water claiming lives of an increasing number of animals. The park officials have evacuated the villagers, put the area on high alert and are taking the animals on highlands. All this comes over and above the high threat of Japanese encephalitis that has claimed 82 lives in Assam since January.
119 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been deployed in Assam following a high-level meeting chaired by Amit Shah who directed every required measure be taken to tackle the crisis at hand. As the rivers flow above the danger level in the North eastern states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Andhra Pradesh, death toll rise further in flood-hit Bihar as well.
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