Assam Flood Leaves Village Buried in Mud

A single night of deadly floods wiped out an entire village in Assam, leaving families without homes, cattle or hope.

Almost every kutcha house has been flattened. Cars and two-wheelers remain buried in knee-deep mud.

Residents rummage through layers of slush for whatever belongings they can salvage, while the stench of decomposing cattle and other livestock hangs over the village, raising fears of a disease outbreak.

This was the scene on Monday at Bihubor Nepali Gorkhuti village in eastern Assam's Sivasagar district, nearly a week after a devastating wall of floodwater swept through the settlement on the night of July 21.

"Everything is gone," Kiren Kumar Ray, a resident of the village, told this correspondent over the phone as he helped relatives pick up the pieces of their lives.

At least seven villagers were reported missing after the flood. Bodies of two of them have been recovered so far, according to residents.

"One body has been found a few kilometres away, but the family members are unable to reach the place because of the floodwaters and thick mud," Ray said.

Dairy Village Faces Economic Ruin

Bihubor Nepali Gorkhuti, located around 27 km from Sivasagar town and barely two kilometres from the boundary of Nagaland's Mon district, has a population of nearly 2,000 predominantly from the Nepali-speaking Gorkha community.

For generations, dairy farming has been one of the main sources of livelihood in the village.

The flood has therefore struck not only homes but the economic backbone of the community.

Residents estimate that between 300 and 400 cattle were killed, apart from other livestock, while houses and household property were extensively damaged.

"I have lost 18 to 20 cattle," Ray said.

Those animals represented years of investment and, for many families, their principal source of daily income.

The cattle that survived now require food, shelter and veterinary care even as their owners struggle to find food and restore their own homes.

Villagers could be seen tending to surviving animals while simultaneously digging household belongings out of the mud.

Sudden Deluge Catches Residents Unaware

Ray said the floodwaters rose with frightening speed between 10 pm and 11 pm on July 21, leaving residents with little time to react.

"Many people climbed trees or went on to the roofs of their houses as the water of the Disang rose so fast. They thought the water would recede, as they have seen during the monsoon every year. But this time it was totally different," he said.

"The water came down very fast and in a huge quantity from the hills of Nagaland."

The assumption that this would be another routine monsoon flood proved disastrous. Within hours, homes were inundated, livestock swept away and roads covered with layers of mud and debris.

Widespread Devastation Across Eastern Assam

The devastation at Bihubor Nepali Gorkhuti is part of a much larger disaster that has battered eastern Assam.

More than six lakh people in over 800 villages across 11 districts continued to grapple with floodwaters and their aftermath on Sunday.

Sivasagar, Charaideo and Jorhat were among the worst-affected districts, where the scale of destruction overwhelmed communities and stretched the administration's capacity to reach survivors.

The death toll in the floods since July 20 climbed to 68 after two more deaths were reported from Charaideo district on Sunday.

Sivasagar alone reported 30 deaths between July 21 and July 24.

The scale and suddenness of the disaster also hampered rescue and relief operations.

Even by Saturday, the administration had been unable to reach around 30 per cent of the affected population in Nazira and 20 per cent in Sivasagar, according to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Sarma said more than 11 lakh people across 2,157 villages had been affected during the current wave of floods.

Extreme Rainfall and Environmental Factors

Sivasagar and Charaideo had received more than 400 per cent excess rainfall, Sarma said, triggering widespread flooding, deaths and destruction.

'Although floods hit the districts almost every year, it was never so devastating. Residents did not imagine such a massive flood, so they were not prepared, unlike people in North Assam's Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts bordering Arunachal Pradesh,' Sarma said.

The geography of the disaster has also drawn attention to exceptionally heavy rainfall across the adjoining hills of Nagaland.

Heavy rain in Mon, Mokokchung and Longleng districts for several days sent enormous quantities of water, mud and sediment downstream into Assam.

Mon district alone recorded 137 mm of rainfall on July 20.

As runoff from the hills surged downstream, water levels in the Disang, Dikhow and Janji rivers rose sharply, inundating towns and villages within hours on July 20 and 21.

Deforestation, Mining May Have Worsened Impact

Scientists say the extraordinary rainfall was the immediate trigger, but changes in the landscape and river systems may have magnified the disaster.

Sarat Phukan, professor of geological sciences at Gauhati University, said deforestation and mining over the years, both in Nagaland and on the Assam side, could have increased the volume of sediment entering the river channels.

The accumulation of sediment can reduce the water-carrying capacity of rivers, leaving them less capable of accommodating sudden, exceptionally high flows during extreme rainfall events, he said.

The large quantities of mud carried into settlements during the latest flood have emerged as one of the biggest challenges facing residents even after water levels began to fall.

Experts also point to the increasing frequency of intense rainfall over short periods as consistent with the risks associated with a changing climate, which can make conventional assumptions about monsoon flooding increasingly unreliable.

Homes Buried in Mud and Slush

The destruction is not confined to the poorer rural settlements.

Anil Sarma, a Guwahati-based healthcare worker who visited Sivasagar on Sunday, said residents in several areas were struggling to clean even multi-storeyed houses that had been inundated.

"Cars and two-wheelers have either been washed away or are lying non-functional under mud and slush," he said.

Inside homes, furniture, electrical appliances, clothes, documents and other belongings have been destroyed or coated with mud.

The situation in the villages is even more grim, he added, where standing crops have been destroyed and kutcha houses have simply disappeared under the force of the water.

As floodwaters recede, the immediate challenge is shifting from rescue to survival and recovery -- clearing mud, disposing of animal carcasses, restoring drinking water and electricity, providing food and medicines and preventing disease outbreaks.

Government agencies, voluntary organisations and individuals from Guwahati and other parts of Assam have begun sending food, ration and other essential supplies to the affected areas.

But for villages such as Bihubor Nepali Gorkhuti, where homes, livestock and livelihoods vanished in a matter of hours, relief supplies can address only the immediate crisis.

"Sivasagar and Charaideo will need months to get back to normalcy," Anil Sarma said.

For Ray and hundreds of families in his village, even that may prove optimistic.

The floodwaters may be retreating, but what they have left behind -- death, mud, shattered homes and the loss of the cattle on which families depended - will take far longer to overcome.

Photographs curated by Anant Salvi/Rediff
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff