Guwahati: The flood situation in Assam improved further on Thursday though one more person lost his life taking the toll to 134 in the calamity, an official bulletin said.
The number of people affected by the deluge in the Brahmaputra and its tributaries dropped to 12 lakh in 22 districts, it said. The figure on Wednesday was about 17 lakh in 21 districts, it said.
Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi visited the flood-hit Barpeta and Baksa districts, where the overflowing rivers have rendered thousands of people homeless. According to the daily flood report of Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), one person drowned in the floodwater in Mikirbheta area of Morigaon district on Thursday taking the toll to 108. The toll in the landslides triggered by the flood stood at 26 taking the total number of deaths to 134, it said.
The ASDMA reports said over 12.01 lakh people are in the grip of floods in Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Sonitpur, Biswanath, Darrang, Baksa, Barpeta, Chirang, Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Dhubri, South Salmara, Goalpara, Kamrup, Kamrup Metropolitan, Morigaon, Nagaon, Golaghat, Jorhat, Majuli, Sivasagar and Dibrugarh districts.
Also read: Marginal improvement in flood situation in Assam, toll reaches 133
Goalpara is the worst hit where about 3.76 lakh people have been affected by the flood, followed by Morigaon where more than 2.34 lakh people are in its grip. In Dhubri the number of affected people is 1.52 lakh people. The reports said the State Disaster Response Force, district administrations and local people have rescued 46 people from different places during the last 24 hours by deploying 102 boats.
At present, 1,339 villages are underwater and 82,169.99 hectares of crop area have been damaged across Assam, ASDMA said. The authorities are running 203 relief camps and distribution centres across 15 districts, where 29,981 people have taken shelter currently.
They have distributed 393.08 quintals of rice, dal and salt and 809.90 litres of mustard oil along with other relief materials such as drinking water and masks among the people. Mukhi has expressed concern over the extensive soil erosion by Beki river in Barpeta and Baksa districts and asked their administrations to reach out to the affected expeditiously and provide them with relief materials.
The governor said that he will have a threadbare discussion with senior officers of the water resources and soil erosion departments to narrow down the probable causes of erosion and find out a scientific solution to this long-standing problem.
On the flood situation, the ASDMA report said the Brahmaputra is flowing above its danger marks at Dhubri town, at Nimatighat in Jorhat and Tezpur in Sonitpur districts. Its tributaries Dhansiri and Jia Bharali are flowing above their danger marks at Numaligarh in Golaghat and NT Road Crossing in Sonitpur respectively. Kopili river is above its danger mark at Dharamtul in Nagaon and Beki river at Road Bridge in Barpeta.
Also read: Assam floods: Death toll rises to 129 as one more die
Embankments, roads, bridges, culverts and many other infrastructures have been damaged at various places in Udalguri, Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Sonitpur, Chirang, Lakhimpur, Golaghat, Morigaon and Sivasagar districts by the flood. Massive erosion has been witnessed at different places of Biswanath, Lakhimpur and Sonitpur districts, ASDMA said. The ASDMA bulletin said that a total of 24 camps out of 223 at Kaziranga National Park, three out of 40 camps at Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park and one out of 10 camps at Tinsukia Wildlife Division have been affected by the deluge.
The deluge has so far claimed the lives of 143 animals, while 165 others were rescued in Kaziranga National Park, it said quoting the divisional forest officer of the Eastern Assam Wildlife Division. The flood has also affected 15,24,339 domestic animals and poultry in the state during the last 24 hours, it added.
Inputs from PTI
