Floods receding in Asom

Guwahati, Aug 3: Even as the toll in the recent floods in Asom reached 27, the waters showed a receding trend throughout the state. Seven more people died drowning in various flood related incidents across the state taking the toll to 27.

However, even with the waters receding, there was little relief for the people as a huge quantity of mud and debris left by the rivers in their spate would take weeks to be cleared. The situation was worsened by poor communication and fear of endemic outbreak amid allegations of shortage of medicines.

Though parts of lower Asom still continued to reel under flood waters, there is a decreasing trend.

The flood had also hit the wildlife hard. As deer escaped the floodwaters in Kaziranga to the highlands, they were being butchered by the villagers mostly in Nagaon, Sonitpur and Golaghat districts.

The railway services, disrupted since yesterday, were slowly coming back to normal. With the Western part of North Eastern Zone of the railways flooded, the authorities were forced to divert some trains.

A Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) spokesperson informed that due to breaches in several places in the railway tracks, train services on the Alipurduar-Siliguri junction section (via Hasimara-Binnaguri -Chaisa) had been diverted to the New Coach Behar-Dhupguri route.

The trains affected were mostly bound for Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore. Northern parts bound trains were not affected.

Top NFR officials had rushed to the locations and the situation was likely to improve by tonight. However, normal traffic along the route could be possible only after August 9, provided the flood situation did not worsen further.

Meanwhile, the Brahmaputra continued to flow above the danger level at gauge stations in Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Neamatighat, Goalpara, Dhubri and Tezpur. The Birhidehing was also still above the red mark in Khowang in Dibrugarh district.

The Subansiri at Badatighat in North Lakhimpur district, Dikow and Desang in Sibsagar and Dhansiri at Golaghat town had receded and was flowing below the danger level today. However, the Dhansiri was flowing above the red mark at Numaligarh in Golaghat district.

Other major tributaries still above the danger level were Kopili, Puthimari, Beki and Sankosh in Nagaon, Kamrup, Barpeta and Dhubri districts.

The Kushiara river was also flowing over the danger mark in Karimganj district.

Swelling Kurishu river in Bhutan had flooded new areas of Barpeta, Baska and Chirang districts of lower Asom after the Bhutanese authorities released water without any alert to the border districts of the state on Tuesday.

Cash strapped Asom Government had decided to make urgent cuts from each government department to make necessary arrangement for post-flood fund.

Meanwhile, the agricultural department was making an estimate of flood damage to the standing crop.

UNI