Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that state emergency services are struggling to deliver relief materials to at least 80,000 flood-affected residents across critical sectors. The severe deluge has claimed 61 lives following 14 additional reported fatalities. Official reports from the Assam State Disaster Management Authority confirm that more than seven hundred thousand citizens remain impacted across nine districts.
Addressing a news conference in Guwahati, Chief Minister Sarma explained that localized pockets remain completely cut off. In the Nazira assembly constituency, approximately 30 percent of the land area—comprising nearly 50,000 people—remains unreachable. In neighbouring Sivasagar, around 20 percent of the region, housing roughly 30,000 residents, is currently inaccessible due to thick deposits of mud and silt stranded on main thoroughfares as floodwaters slowly recede.
The state administration attempted to deploy aerial relief drops, but initial efforts were suspended after food packages and vital items sustained heavy damage upon impact. Officials are now coordinating with the Eastern Air Command of the Indian Air Force to modify packaging standards for future air-drops. Meanwhile, ground teams are mobilizing additional boats and essential supplies from surrounding regions to establish ground routes into marooned communities.
Power distribution remains severely disrupted across the affected region. Although repair crews have successfully restored electricity to 75 percent of consumers, approximately 40,000 households continue to live without power as crews work through waterlogged terrain. Local representatives, including Nazira legislator Mayur Borgohain, expressed urgency during district review meetings, emphasizing that lack of access has created critical shortages of clean drinking water in isolated panchayats.
The latest daily bulletin reported 14 drowning deaths over a 24-hour window, with seven fatalities in Charaideo, six in Sivasagar, and one in Jorhat. Sivasagar remains the most severely affected district with nearly 350,000 residents impacted, followed by Charaideo with 190,000 and Jorhat with 130,000. Authorities are presently operating 363 official relief centres and distribution points across seven districts, providing temporary shelter and sustenance to over 115,000 displaced people.
Meteorological evaluations indicate that while no cloudburst occurred in neighboring hill areas of Nagaland, localized rainfall reached between 100 and nearly 500 percent above normal seasonal averages, creating cloudburst-like run-off that swamped Assam’s low-lying basins. A specialized central government assessment team is scheduled to evaluate the physical and agricultural destruction to coordinate long-term recovery and rehabilitation assistance.
