Silchar in Assam is still under water a week after the worst floods | Media Pyro

Annual monsoon floods usually hit lowland Assam, a largely agricultural region, but this month’s heaviest rains were so heavy and prolonged that they also flooded towns like Silchar.

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The situation in the city is “still very serious,” said Shamim Ahmed Laskar, a local disaster management official.

“The roads are very narrow in many parts of the city,” he said. “Rescuers and aid workers have difficulty getting boats to those areas.” He said the biggest challenge now is to reach people who are isolated without food, drinking water and medicine.

The water packets were being dropped by drones and the Indian Air Force, according to the Deccan Herald. Pictures from the regional disaster management agency show women standing in buckets full of water drinking waterwhile doctors at the overcrowded hospital said they were treating cancer patients on the streets.

Although electricity has been restored in some areas, many people in the area are still without electricity. People gathered freely Mobile charging booth made on a highway in Silchar, this video shared by NDTV.

Biswa Kalyan Purkayastha, a 32-year-old journalist from the city, has been holed up in the second-floor terrace of his house for a week along with eight other people, including neighbors and family members.

When the flood reached his neighborhood last Monday, Purkayastha and his brother stocked up on food and drinking water. Within a few hours, he said, there was 5 feet of water outside, and they started to go inside their house. Soon, the water inside was knee-deep. The family tarred the yard and moved upstairs.

“We took electronics and clothes,” he said. “For bathing and cooking, we collect rainwater in buckets.”

On Monday, the water finally receded from their homes, but the signs of the disaster were still visible. “It never floods [in the area] we live,” he said. “But the lane still has four feet of water.”

Sushmita Dev, an opposition leader in the state who is helping with the rescue efforts, tweeted that the entire city felt like “camp” and tens of thousands are suffering.

Other parts of Assam are also inundated. More than 130 people have died in the region and millions more have been affected by the floods, which have also devastated neighboring Bangladesh. Major rivers such as the Baraka and their tributaries are overflowing.

A recent report by the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India has revealed more than half of Assam is highly vulnerable to climate change.

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On Sunday, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of the state, visited Silchar, wading through knee-deep water on the roads. “If there is no fresh rain, the flood in the city should recede in the next 48 hours,” he said, according to Hindustan Times.

His office announced that he was sending medicine and doctors from Guwahati, the state’s largest city. Shield supplies are also being sent to Silchar and distributed to those without electricity.

Silchar has experienced major floods before, but never to this extent. Although the 1986 floods were “huge,” recalled Pranabananda Das, a 49-year-old editor of a local newspaper, the waters did not rise quickly enough then, giving residents time to move to safer places. .

“This time the city was in mourning for an hour or two,” Das said. “People didn’t have time to escape.”

As the locals try to get back on their feet, they begin to make sense of what they have lost.

Tamojit Saha, a college professor, survived the handwritten notes until last week. He was rescued by his neighbors when the water started to flood his house. “There is knee-deep water on the road outside,” he said, making it impossible for him to return home. But he is already grieving the loss of his library.

“All my precious collections of rare books and historical documents have been washed away,” he said. “It’s an irrevocable loss for me.”