Floods in Assam: Death toll rises to 61; 1.1m affected

More than a million people have been affected by flooding in northeastern India, where the death toll rose to 61, authorities said yesterday.

Flooding is an annual phenomenon in India's northeast, claiming hundreds of lives each year.

The flood has affected 10.75 lakh people in 18 districts of Assam, a government report said. Of the dead, 37 people were killed in the flood and 24 died due to landslides triggered by incessant rainfall, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said in its daily report.

The Brahmaputra River, one of the largest rivers in the world which flows from Tibet into India and then into Bangladesh, burst its banks in Assam last week, inundating more than 2,000 villages. The river is flowing above the danger mark at Neamatighat in Jorhat and Dhubri town in Dhubri districts, reports said yesterday.

The state was first hit in mid-May when pre-monsoon rains arrived, causing floods that killed 11 people. Another 20 died in landslides caused by days of incessant downpours.

The floodwaters receded after a few weeks, only to rise again on June 22 at the start of the annual monsoon season.

About 70 percent of Assam's World Heritage-listed Kaziranga National Park -- home to two-thirds of the world's remaining one-horned rhinos -- was submerged by the floods.

The monsoon is crucial to replenishing water supplies in South Asia, but also causes widespread death and destruction across the region each year.