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Floods wreck havoc in Assam
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said it is the worst flooding in recent memory with 22 of the 24 districts in Assam under floodwater.
The flood situation in Northeast region continued to be grim on Tuesday with two more people drowning and hundreds of villages being submerged under floodwater with the Brahmaputra river flowing above the danger mark.
"This is the worst flooding in recent memory with 22 of the 24 districts in Assam under floodwater," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
"The high water current has washed away rows and rows of villages. The conditions of the people are really devastating."
The death toll in flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains in the Northeast that began mid-June has mounted to 66 with two more persons drowning on Tuesday in western Assam's Nalbari district.
"A total of about 3.7 million people are now displaced with an estimated 3,200 villages under water leaving a trail of destruction across the state," an Assam flood control official said.
A Central Water Commission bulletin said the Brahmaputra river was flowing at least 1.5 to 2.6 metres above the danger level in 21 major channels.
"The Brahmaputra was maintaining a rising trend all along its course," the bulletin said. Several parts of Assam remained cut off, with floodwaters overtopping national highways and creating big craters on the road.
Hundreds of thousands of people were taking shelter on raised bamboo stilts and on mud embankments, some even on rooftops of their mud-and straw huts.
"We are trying our best to provide food and medicines to the victims. But then as we all know, it is next to impossible to meet the needs of millions of flood-hit people," Assam Health Minister Bhumidhar Barman said.
In the adjoining state of Arunachal Pradesh, heavy landslides and flooding have cut off several districts from the rest of the country.
"In some areas we are facing food crisis with fresh supply of essentials not been able to reach remote areas due to mudslides and flooding," an Arunachal Pradesh government spokesman said over the telephone from capital Itanagar.
Torrential rains have triggered landslides in Tripura and Manipur - road links between the two states and the rest of India remained snapped since Monday.
Floods and landslides have also hit the neighbouring Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.
"At least a dozen bailey bridges have been washed away, besides several houses and shops swept away by overflowing rivers in the kingdom," a Bhutanese foreign ministry official said over the telephone from capital Thimphu.
"There was a dam burst over the weekend and that also uprooted transmission towers causing immense hardship in the kingdom," he said.
