35 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleDilip Kumar Sharma and Abhishek DeyBBC Hindi, Jorhat and BBC News, Delhi
Anadolu via Getty ImagesWhen Shalini Patra watched the rain on 19 July from her home in Jorhat district in the northeast Indian state of Assam, she didn’t know that her life was about to change.
In the afternoon, the 18-year-old suddenly heard the sound of rushing water and people shouting.
“Within minutes, knee-deep water had entered our house,” she recalled.
Patra helped her elderly parents and younger brother reach higher ground before returning to try and salvage some belongings. But by the time she fought her way back through the water, their house had been washed away.
“We had a television, a cupboard and a sofa. Nothing was left. We couldn’t even save a glass to drink water from,” she told BBC Hindi from a relief camp.
“The floods took everything from us.”
Every year, she said, floods swept through her village, Seleng Sumoni Pathar on the banks of the Jhanji River, a tributary of the mighty Brahmaputra, one of the world’s largest rivers.
But this year was different.
Flooding is a recurring part of life in Assam – nearly 40% of the state is classified as flood-prone by India’s National Flood Commission. Assam lies on the vast floodplain of the Brahmaputra, which flows down from the Himalayas and is fed by more than 50 tributaries.
During the annual monsoon, heavy rain across the region increases the volume of water in the river. As the Brahmaputra flows across Assam’s flat plains, it deposits large amounts of sand and silt, reducing the river’s capacity to carry water and making flooding more likely.
But experts say flooding has worsened over time because of upstream deforestation, ageing embankments and heavier rainfall driven by climate change.
Exceptionally heavy rain across parts of neighbouring Nagaland and Assam from mid-July triggered this year’s devastating floods, which minister Pijush Hazarika described as the state’s worst in six decades.
At least 68 people have died in the past four weeks, including 58 in the past week alone, while around 40 remain missing. Government data says more than 600,000 people have been affected, with tens of thousands displaced and living in relief camps.
EPA/ShutterstockOn 21 July alone, 21 people died in 24 hours, most swept away or drowned in floodwaters. Others were killed in landslides and house collapses.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said districts in Nagaland and Assam received rainfall between about 435% and 490% above normal over that period, causing rivers to rise at an unprecedented speed.
Upper Assam, where tributaries from the surrounding hills feed the Brahmaputra, bore the brunt of the flooding. Districts including Sivasagar, Charaideo and Jorhat were among the worst hit. As villages were cut off, rescue teams struggled to reach stranded families.
Assam Chief Secretary Ravi Kotta said officials had been deployed to the worst-hit districts to speed up relief and restoration, with priority given to supplying relief materials and restoring essential services.
A mother and her seven-year-old son spent 12 hours in a mango tree after floodwaters engulfed their village.
Rekhamoni Gogoi, from Holang Katoni village in Sivasagar, told local media the water rose to chest level within an hour on 19 July after heavy rain flooded Upper Assam. She first took shelter at a neighbour’s house, but fled again as the water kept rising.
Anadolu via Getty ImagesAt about 20:00 local time, they climbed a large mango tree in the courtyard. Gogoi said other women helped her climb first while carrying her son before joining them on the branches.
“There was darkness all around us. There seemed to be no hope of survival, but I refused to lose courage,” she said.
The pair spent the night in the tree without food or water. Gogoi said her son tried to comfort her, saying they could survive by eating the leaves.
“My son’s life is more precious to me than my own, so I was determined to protect him at any cost,” she told reporters.
They were rescued the following morning and are now staying in a relief camp while waiting for the floodwaters to recede.
Chief Minister Sarma said the government’s focus was now shifting towards rehabilitation, with ministers deployed across the state to coordinate recovery efforts.
But for Patra, whose parents are daily wage workers, the future looks uncertain.
“My parents spent years building that house,” she said. “I don’t know what we will do now. It will take us years to build another one.”
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