Heavy floods hit India’s northeast
INDIA: Close to 150,000 people are sheltering in schools, government
buildings and makeshift tents after being hit by flash floods in India’s
northeast, officials said Tuesday.
Thousands of villagers lost their homes and crops as the Brahmaputra
river — which flows through Tibet, India and Bangladesh and is one of
Asia’s longest waterways — rose above danger level.
So far 125 villages had been affected with almost 150,000 people
displaced in the first wave of floods, the regional weather office in
Assam state’s main city of Guwahati said.
The state government said it was monitoring the situation as the
weather office warned of more rain and thunderstorms in the next 24
hours.
Every year the monsoon causes the river to flood in Assam, a remote
state of 26 million people. In 2004, at least 200 people died and
millions were displaced.
Guwahati, Wednesday, AFP
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