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Floods in Assam have killed 50 people and affected more than 8 lakh people. There is a possibility of more heavy rain in the coming days.
After continuous heavy rains in Phulpanisiga of Sivasagar district of Assam, people in the flood affected area moved to safe places. | Photo: PTI
For thousands of families across Assam, this year’s monsoon has come with a familiar dread. In Guwahati’s Rajapul area, flood waters rose so fast that houses were submerged up to chest level within a few hours, leaving residents stranded overnight until rescue teams arrived by boat.
Across the state, the story has been much the same. Torrential rains have turned villages into islands, disrupted road and rail links, submerged tea gardens and forced thousands of people into relief camps. According to TOI, the latest wave of floods has killed 50 people and affected over 8 lakh people in 16 districts, with the Brahmaputra and several of its tributaries flowing above the danger mark, while more rain is forecast.
It is a scene Assam has seen countless times.
Every monsoon, swollen rivers swallow villages, roads are submerged in dirty water, tea gardens remain submerged for days and thousands of families move to relief camps. Rescue boats replace buses, schools become shelters and livelihoods are upended.
This year too has been no different. Incessant monsoon rains and flash floods have submerged large parts of Assam, affecting more than 8 lakh people in 16 districts. The floods have killed dozens of people, submerged thousands of villages, damaged roads and embankments, disrupted rail connectivity to upper Assam and forced thousands of people to live in relief camps.
Many tea gardens, especially in Nazira subdivision of Sivasagar, are submerged in water, threatening one of the most important industries in the state.
Rescue operations by the Army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and local authorities are underway as major rivers including the Brahmaputra and several of its tributaries are flowing above the danger mark amid forecast of more heavy rainfall.
Still, there is a big question hidden behind every flood.
Why do floods occur every year in Assam?
A river that created Assam, the Brahmaputra is often called the lifeline of Assam.
Stretching about 2,900 kilometers from Tibet through Arunachal Pradesh and Assam before entering Bangladesh, the river is one of the largest rivers in the world by flow. Unlike many rivers flowing in a single channel, the Brahmaputra flows in several braided channels across a vast floodplain in Assam, making it naturally prone to overflow during the monsoon.
Over centuries, these floods enriched the fertile plains of Assam by depositing nutrient-rich silt, which supported rice cultivation, fisheries and the tea industry.
But today the same river has become one of India’s most devastating annual disasters.
It’s not just rain Heavy monsoon rains are the most obvious reason behind Assam’s floods, but scientists say it’s only part of a much bigger picture.
The Brahmaputra is fed by hundreds of tributaries flowing from the Himalayas and surrounding hills. During the south-west monsoon, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Bhutan and neighboring hill states receive intense rainfall simultaneously.
When all these rivers swell together, within a short time a huge amount of water accumulates in the Brahmaputra, causing its channels to overflow.
Climate change is making this process even more intense.
Scientists say Assam floods are no longer driven solely by monsoon rains. Climate change is altering the intensity and behavior of rainfall in the Eastern Himalayas and Northeast India. Instead of continuous rainfall over several days, the region is increasingly experiencing short-duration, high-intensity cloud bursts that produce large amounts of rainfall within a few hours.
These intense rains give rivers little time to absorb or slowly drain excess water. As a result, the tributaries of the Brahmaputra rise almost simultaneously, causing a huge surge of water in the main river.
The situation has become more serious due to increase in temperature, due to which more moisture remains in the atmosphere. According to climate scientists, for every degree Celsius increase in temperature, the atmosphere is able to retain about 7% more water vapor, increasing the likelihood of extreme rainfall events.
When these moisture-laden systems hit the steep slopes of the Himalayas and the Meghalaya plateau, they produce torrential rains that rapidly flow down Assam’s river networks, causing flooding in flood plains and causing flash floods, prolonged flooding and massive erosion.
Researchers warn that although annual rainfall may not increase dramatically, the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events are expected to increase, making floods more sudden, destructive and difficult to predict.
The hidden role of silt
The biggest reason for frequent floods in Assam lies under water.
The Brahmaputra carries the world’s largest sediment load. Every year, millions of tons of sand, gravel and silt are washed into the river by rain, landslides and erosion in the young Himalayan mountains. As this sediment is deposited in the plains of Assam, the river bed gradually rises.
A shallow river has less capacity to hold flood water. When there is intense rain, the excess water spreads over the banks much faster than otherwise.
Many hydrologists attribute a major change in the behavior of the Brahmaputra to the 1950 Assam-Tibet earthquake, which caused massive landslides in the Himalayas. The landslide caused massive amounts of sediment to spread into the river system, altering the course of the river and increasing the risk of flooding in the decades that followed.
The problem is further aggravated by deforestation.
Another contributing factor lies upstream. Deforestation in Arunachal Pradesh and other upper catchment areas reduces the landscape’s ability to absorb rainfall. Instead of slowly filtering into the ground, rain water quickly flows into drains and rivers and takes loose soil with it.
The result is a double whammy: faster runoff increases flood peaks, while additional sediment raises the river bed even further over time. Scientific studies have linked land-use change and erosion in the Brahmaputra basin to high siltation and downstream flooding.
Why did embankments not solve Assam’s flood problem?
For decades, embankments have been Assam’s primary protection against floods.
There are thousands of kilometers long earthen embankments along the rivers of the state. Many people have protected cities and agricultural lands during moderate flooding. But they are not infallible. Due to repeated strong flows, the embankments become weak, the foundation gets eroded due to erosion and due to cracks, flood water starts entering the villages within a few minutes.
Hydrologists also argue that embankments alone cannot solve the problem posed by changes in sedimentation, river migration and rainfall patterns. In some places, confining the river within embankments increases the pressure during extreme floods, making breaches even more destructive.
Experts are advocating a combination of river restoration, floodplain zoning, better forecasting, wetland conservation and resilient infrastructure, rather than relying solely on embankments.
Assam has been battling floods for generations
Flood is nothing new. Major floods have occurred repeatedly in Assam since the 1950s, with the worst floods recorded in 1954, 1962, 1972, 1988, 1998, 2004, 2012, 2020 and 2022 apart from the current flood.
The state government estimates that more than 4.27 lakh hectares of land has been lost to river erosion since 1950, an irreparable loss that has displaced thousands of families and changed the geography of entire districts.
Every major flood follows a familiar cycle:
• The villages are submerged.
• Crops are destroyed.
• Road and railway links have been disrupted.
• Schools became relief camps.
• Families are rebuilt by the next monsoon.
Tea industry pays heavy price
Floods do not only affect houses. They also threaten tea, one of Assam’s biggest economic pillars. The state produces more than half of India’s tea, employing thousands of workers in various regions of Upper Assam.
This year’s floods inundated tea gardens in districts like Sivasagar, disrupting work in the region and affecting the mobility of workers. Flood water damages tea bushes, delays the picking cycle, reduces leaf quality and increases the risk of disease in plantations.
When assets remain submerged for days, a wave of production losses ripples through the supply chain. Tea factories struggle to obtain fresh leaves, exports are delayed and thousands of workers lose daily wages during prolonged floods.
Tea bushes can survive temporary flooding, but prolonged waterlogging reduces leaf quality, delays harvest and increases fungal diseases, affecting both yields and exports.
Even after water recedes, plantations often require weeks of restoration before normal harvesting can resume.
Flood does not end just because water runs out
For many families, trouble begins only after the water recedes. Contaminated drinking water increases the risk of disease, farmers lose standing crops just before harvest, children miss school, livestock die and damaged houses have to be rebuilt. Many families spend months recovering financially from a disaster that lasted only a few days, only to face the same uncertainty again in the next monsoon.
Assam, India, India
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