Assam Flood Crisis Deepens 19 Days After Deluge, Homes and Livelihoods Lost

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: It has been 19 days since the sudden deluge on July 19, 2026, swamped the districts of Sivasagar, Charaideo, Jorhat and Golaghat, but the people are yet to get respite. Even as many areas are still inundated in Upper Assam, the North Bank of the Brahmaputra River is now reeling under floodwaters caused by the excess water run-off from Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh.

After the Noa River breached its embankment in Darrang district yesterday, several villages got submerged by the floodwaters. A lady of Mothongachuburi, one of the affected areas near the Noa River, said, "The embankment was breached yesterday morning, and floodwaters started rising in our village from last night. We spent a sleepless night for fear of the water level increasing further. Now, there is waist-high floodwater in some places and knee-high in others. There are several fisheries near our home, and the fish escaped after the floodwaters submerged them."

In addition to the Noa, the Kulsi River is also overflowing, and the floodwater has damaged many paddy fields.

Meanwhile, Teok in Jorhat district is facing floods again, and the National Highway is flooded for the second day today. A local resident said, "The national highway running through Teok was submerged on July 19, 20 and 21, and traffic movement was affected. Since yesterday, the highway has been submerged, and water is still on the road today. We have been consistently complaining that the drains constructed by NHIDCL along the highway are ineffective. Now, water from the Teok River submerges the national highway, and it cannot make its way out due to the defective drains. NHIDCL needs to correct the mistake made by it during the construction of the drains; otherwise, the problem will persist."

Following the rising water of the Teok River overflowing its banks, many villages are inundated once again. A villager near Teok said, "Our village was first struck by floods on July 19. In the past few days the floodwater receded, and we came back to our flood-affected home. We were engaged in cleaning the silt and muck when the water level of the Teok River rose again yesterday, forcing us to abandon our efforts and go back to relief camps." 

People of Bihubor in Nazira ventured back to their homes, only to find their houses and paddy fields devastated by the silt left behind by the receding floodwater. Their fields are now filled with muck, sand and small stones carried by the floodwater. Villagers fear they will not be able to farm their agricultural fields this year.

An elderly lady in the Bihubor area narrated her sad story, saying, "When the floodwater struck our village on July 19, four of us barely escaped with our lives by clinging on to a few bamboos. I don't have any agricultural land, and my only house has been damaged by the mud and silt. I'm very poor and had saved Rs 1,000 in a box. On returning home, I couldn't find even that. We have gone from poor to very poor, as the flood left me without even a single chair."

According to the CWC morning report, the River Dhansiri is flowing above the danger level at Numaligarh in the Golaghat district. The Brahmaputra River is flowing below the danger level but shows a rising trend at Dibrugarh, Tezpur, Guwahati, Goalpara and Dhubri.

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