Packages of food, water bottles and other essentials are being dropped by the Air Force.
Guwahati:
The flooding situation in Assam remained grim on Saturday, with a death toll rising to 118 and the town of Silchar in Cachar district flooded for the sixth day in a row, officials said.
Floods and landslides have killed another 10 people in the past 24 hours – two each from Barpeta, Dhubri, Karimganj and Udalguri districts and one dead each from Cachar and Morigaon.
The total population affected by the floods fell to 33.03 lakh in 28 districts, from 45.34 lakh from the previous day in 30 districts, according to a bulletin from the Assam State Management Disaster Authority (ASDMA).
The situation improved marginally in some districts as rivers showed a declining trend through the Brahmaputra near Dhubri, while the Kopili River in Nagaon flowed above the danger line, officials said.
The Cachar district administration is conducting rescue operations in Silchar to bring people to safety, with priority in transferring the sick to hospital, Deputy Commissioner Keerthi Jalli said.
Packages of food, drinking water bottles and other supplies are being dropped in the city by Indian Air Force helicopters, and this will continue until the situation improves, she said.
Two drones have also been deployed in Silchar to map floods and deliver relief supplies to the affected people.
Eight NDRF teams consisting of 207 personnel from Itanagar and Bhubaneswar, along with an army unit of 120 personnel and nine boats from Dimapur are stationed in Silchar.
Nearly three lakh people are in distress in Silchar with acute shortages of food, clean drinking water and medicines, officials said.
The districts worst hit by floods in the state are Barpeta with 8,76,842 people in discomfort, followed by Nagaon (5,08,475), Kamrup (4,01,512), Nagaon (5,03,308) and Dhubri (3,99,945), according to the ASDMA bulletin.
The deluge has affected 93 income circles and 3,510 villages, while 2,65,788 people have found shelter in 717 relief camps, it said.
Relief supplies have been distributed from 409 delivery points to the people affected by the floods, who have not taken shelter in the camps.
A total of 312 homes were damaged in the past 24 hours, the ASDMA said.
Large-scale erosion was also reported from several places, including Baksa, Biswanath, Bongaigaon, Chirang, Dibrugarh, Darrang, Golaghat, Hailakandi and Kamrup, it added.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
