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| Tuesday, 18 June 2002 |
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20,000 marooned by flash floods in northeastern India GUWAHATI, India, Monday (AFP) Flash floods triggered by monsoon rains in India's northeastern state of Assam have submerged at least 30 villages, marooning up to 20,000 people, officials said Monday. The world-renowned Kaziranga National Park in Assam, home to the almost extinct one-horned rhinoceros, is also under threat, the officials warned. A government spokesman said incessant rains during the past few days had led to a sharp rise in the level of the river Brahmaputra. "The flood situation is grim with the Brahmaputra and its tributaries showing a rising trend, flowing above the warning level at various places," a flood control official in Assam's capital Guwahati said. Assam's flood control minister Bharat Narah told AFP, "about 20,000 people have been marooned and about 30 villages submerged" by the floods in Dhemaji district, 465 kilometres (288 miles) from Guwahati. The world's largest river island of Majuli in eastern Assam, was in danger of being submerged. "Water levels of the Brahmaputra around the Majuli island are above the danger mark" the flood control official said. Forest rangers at the Kaziranga park have been put on a maximum alert amid fears that flood waters might submerge the sanctuary. "During the floods two years ago, more than 600 endangered animals drowned," park warden N.K. Vasu said by telephone from Kaziranga, 220 kilometres (136 miles) east of here. "So we are worried - although the park is safe right now."
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