Assam Flood Situation Improves, Number Of Affected People Declines To 22.17 Lakh

Assam's flood situation improved on Saturday as the number of affected people declined to 22.17 lakh from the previous day's 29.70 lakh with the death of one more person that took the toll to 174, officials said.

The situation in Silchar town in Cachar district, which remained submerged for nearly two weeks, is also improving. An Inter-Ministerial team, after completing their visit to some of the flood-affected districts to assess the damage, held a meeting here with Chief Secretary Jishnu Barua and other stakeholders.

Barua requested the team members to submit their report at the earliest to the Centre so that the state government can get more central funds quickly, an official release said.

Most of the rivers are maintaining a receding trend though the Brahmaputra, Kopili, Disang, Buridihing and the Barak are flowing above the danger mark at several places.

After one person died due to the flood in Cachar district, the toll increased to 174, according to the bulletin issued by the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA).

The Cachar district administration is taking steps to pump out water from the clogged areas. Waterlogging, however, remained in the severely affected areas of the district headquarter town which witnessed unprecedented flooding following the breach in the dyke over River Barak at Bethkundi.

One person has been arrested for the breach which the authorities claimed was allegedly done by miscreants and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma described the flood there as ''man-made''.

A case has been filed and the CID was investigating the matter. According to the ASDMA bulletin, 1934 villages under 77 revenue circles have been affected across the state while 2,77,355 people have taken shelter in 404 relief camps.

Relief materials were distributed from 138 delivery points among people who have not taken shelter in relief camps. A crop area of 50,741.18 hectares has been inundated while 34,242 animals were washed away and 7,81,780 were affected.

In Kaziranga National Park, 32 camps have been inundated by flood water while in Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, 10 camps were flooded. Large scale erosion took place in several districts. A landslide was also reported from Hailakandi but there was no casualty, the bulletin stated.

A man was arrested in Assam's Cachar district for the breach of an embankment of the Barak river, which led to the devastating floods in Silchar town, police said on Saturday.

Kabul Khan, a resident of the Bethkundi area, was nabbed from his house on Friday night, they said. Khan had allegedly filmed a video of the breach, which Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had shown to the people when he had visited the embankment site on Friday.

Sarma had asked the people to identify the voices in the video, subsequently, Khan was identified. He was detained for interrogation and later arrested, a senior police officer said.

Efforts are on to identify the others involved in the incident, he said. The district administration maintains that the embankment was breached by miscreants, while locals claim that it was already damaged since the floods in May and they have been urging the authorities to repair it.

As repeated appeals to repair it fell on deaf ears, some people of the area dug the embankment so that the water that entered their houses could recede into the river, locals said.

However, as levels of the Barak river rose, water started entering through the breached embankment on June 19. Terming the flood "man-made", Sarma on Friday said that a case has been registered and the CID will investigate the matter.

(with inputs from PTI)