Flooding triggered by monsoon rains in northeastern India has claimed nearly 100 lives, authorities said, following one of the region’s worst episodes of heavy rainfall in recent years.
At least 97 people have died in the state of Assam, while nearly 170,000 residents have been affected by flash floods and landslides, forcing thousands to seek shelter in emergency relief camps.
More than 140,000 stremmas (approximately 14,000 hectares) of farmland have been flooded—an area nearly one and a half times the size of Paris.
An AFP journalist in the hard-hit Sivasagar district reported seeing homes partially submerged, uprooted trees, and vehicles buried in mud.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma shared a video on social media showing him comforting the parents of a 13-year-old boy who died while trying to save his dog as floodwaters rapidly rose.
“No parent should ever have to say goodbye to their child,” Sarma wrote.
India’s Health Minister J. P. Nadda, who visited the affected region on Thursday, described the scale of the disaster as one that “will take time” to recover from.
“Village after village was submerged under water,” he told reporters.
Like much of India, Assam experiences severe flooding during the monsoon season, which lasts from June to September, particularly when the Brahmaputra River and its tributaries overflow their banks.
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