Assam floods: Third wave of deluge hits 15 districts on Friday, three lakh people affected

Guwahati: A third wave of floods hit Assam on Friday, inundating over 700 villages in 15 districts and affecting over three lakh people. The Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Biswanath, Baksa, Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Chirang, Kikrajhar, Dhubri, Jorhat, Majuli, Sivsagar, Charaideo, Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts were affected. [caption id=“attachment_2884028” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Women shift to safer places from a flood affected village in Jorhat. PTI[/caption] “There have been incessant rains in the state for the last 24 hours and at least six rivers are in spate and flowing above danger levels,” an ASDMA official said, adding 781 villages in the districts had been inundated. The surging waters have inundated 19,481 hectares of agricultural land. A total of 354,326 people have been affected in the 15 districts while close to 14,000 people have taken shelter in 45 relief camps opened by the authorities, the officials said. Floods have ravaged Assam since April, uprooting over 25 lakh people in 29 districts and leaving 76 people dead. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the state on 1 August and announced a package of Rs 2,350 crore for the entire northeast to deal with the flood situation. While Modi announced Rs 2,000 crore to mitigate the flood damage, he also instituted a corpus of Rs 100 crore for setting up an expert committee to study the course of the Brahmaputra so that the recurring floods can be resolved. He announced an additional Rs 250 crore for flood relief operations in Assam.