Flood havoc in State, 9 swept away GUWAHATI, May 28 At least nine villagers have been swept away in flash floods in Assam caused by heavy rain and release of excess water from a dam in neighbouring Bhutan, reports PTI. Five members of a family, including three women, were drowned in Gangadhar river in Dhubri district when their boat capsized near Agomoni yesterday, official sources said.
Three others travelling in the boat were rescued while the body of a villager swept away by the turbulent Borolia river in Barpeta district was found at Tatarkuchi today.
The bodies of two villagers swept away by the Jia Bhoroli river were also found at Pachmile in Sonitpur district while one person was swept away by Kaldia river in Barpeta yesterday.
The sources said the rivers in the districts of Sonitpur, Baksa, Dhubri and Barpeta districts were in spate following release of water from the Kurichu dam in Bhutan after torrential rain.
The flash flood caused havoc in Barpeta and Baksa districts where over 150 villages have been inundated by the Beki river.
Communication was affected in the flood-hit districts with bamboo bridges washed away. Both the approaches to a concrete bridge over Beki at Donighat have been damaged.
Sources said the district authorities were caught unawares as the flash flood caused havoc after Bhutan released the water through three sluice gates in the upstream of the rivers.
Although the water level of the Beki, Borolia, Jia Bhorali and Gangadhar rivers were receding, the situation was grim as the administration launched rescue operation.
The army along with the Disaster Management Response Force personnel have been deployed in the affected areas to rescue people and take them to safer places in rubber boats.
Several hectares of cropland in the affected districts are also under water.
There were reports of rise in the water level of river Siang in Arunachal Pradesh due to heavy rain in upstream rivers in China.
Barpeta Correspondent adds: More than 1.5 lakh of people belonging to 300 villages are languishing under flood water as the devastation entered the third day today. Flash floods entered the northern and western part of Barpeta district and also Baksa district towards evening on Tuesday and swept one village after another.
Flood waters washed away a portion of the Barpeta Road- Bahbari road leading to Manas National Park-cum-tiger Project at Safakamar besides considerably affecting ongoing erosion-control work there. The famous park has remained cut off from the rest over the last 48 hours.
Floods also washed away both the approaches to a concrete bridge at Domnighat over Beki besides a number of wooden and bamboo bridges paralysing the entire surface-communication system in the locality which is already in a pitiable condition lacking proper attention by authorities concerned.
State Minister for Revenue, Rehabilitation and Relief Dr Bhumidhar Barman visited the affected areas this afternoon along with a team of officers. The senior minister of the State Cabinet tried to console the suffering people by saying that Accident is accident. He did not commit anything. Neither for the control of floods nor relief and rehabilitation of affected people. While he was apprised about release of water by the neighbouring country of Bhutan he replied that he would intimate this matter to the Chief Minister and there would be an endeavour to deal with the problem through diplomatic channel.
People here have been critical of the role of Government both at Dispur and Delhi for their ignorance leading to inability to deal with the intractable Bhutan government which has been at the root of misery of the masses year after year.
The same catastrophe, he occurred in 2004 which was repeated in 2007. But the so-called popular government at Centre has done nothing leading to uncertainty in respect of the lives and properties of people. Government at state-level also failed to warn the people about the floods.
